Dealership Newsmaker Q&A: Robbie Long

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing service and parts departments right now?

You have to reinvent yourself on a regular basis. Before, dealers had warranty growth and customer growth, and things were rather steady. Now, nothing is steady unless you make it happen. You have to make sure that the store is involved in any additional profit centers that you can create—businesses within the business—and that's the only way to maintain what you've lost to these economic changes.

What sorts of strategies have you employed at Liberty Auto to improve business?

A good part of our strategy is that we can work on more makes and models than we actually sell. We're also focusing on used cars and maintaining that customer, which dealers used to just let go away. You don't want that customer to go away. Marketing to them is important, e-mail is important, reaching out to all of those entities. Again, you have to give them a complete menu of services. In November we're installing a quick lane, which a lot of other dealers have done. I'm quite excited about it because we're setting it up as a separate entity in the store, with its own advisors and its own techs, and you funnel that work back into shop. Handling it that way is a different kind of strategy for a quick lane.

Do you offer aftermarket parts alternatives, particularly for used car customers?

You need to do that. Even on accessorizing. For some of the things that the factory is pricey on, we've reverted to some aftermarket items that we know are still of good value and still a solid entity. The manufacturers don't always fulfill all our needs. They try, but the aftermarket is ahead of them in some areas. When you get into remote starts on imports, some of them don’t' have availability from the factory, so there are some very good aftermarket sources out there we would refer to. You definitely need to have them available. Tires are big for us, and that's something we went into a long time ago. That's key. You can offer them some value there with matching the factory and giving them a different entity that will work on their vehicle.

Robbie Long began her career in the retail auto space working in marketing and advertising before purchasing a Subaru-Mitsubishi dealership in Chicago in 1985. She joined Liberty Auto City in Libertyville, Ill., in 1993 as customer relations manager, and now also acts as service director for six franchises, managing 24 technicians and more than 30 bays, along with a body shop.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing service and parts departments right now?

You have to reinvent yourself on a regular basis. Before, dealers had warranty growth and customer growth, and things were rather steady. Now, nothing is steady unless you make it happen. You have to make sure that the store is involved in any additional profit centers that you can create—businesses within the business—and that's the only way to maintain what you've lost to these economic changes.

What sorts of strategies have you employed at Liberty Auto to improve business?

A good part of our strategy is that we can work on more makes and models than we actually sell. We're also focusing on used cars and maintaining that customer, which dealers used to just let go away. You don't want that customer to go away. Marketing to them is important, e-mail is important, reaching out to all of those entities. Again, you have to give them a complete menu of services. In November we're installing a quick lane, which a lot of other dealers have done. I'm quite excited about it because we're setting it up as a separate entity in the store, with its own advisors and its own techs, and you funnel that work back into shop. Handling it that way is a different kind of strategy for a quick lane.

Do you offer aftermarket parts alternatives, particularly for used car customers?

You need to do that. Even on accessorizing. For some of the things that the factory is pricey on, we've reverted to some aftermarket items that we know are still of good value and still a solid entity. The manufacturers don't always fulfill all our needs. They try, but the aftermarket is ahead of them in some areas. When you get into remote starts on imports, some of them don’t' have availability from the factory, so there are some very good aftermarket sources out there we would refer to. You definitely need to have them available. Tires are big for us, and that's something we went into a long time ago. That's key. You can offer them some value there with matching the factory and giving them a different entity that will work on their vehicle.