Dealership Newsmaker Q&A: Dave Belknap and Connie Gault
Tell me a little about the Toyota store and the President's Award.
Gault: We just built a brand new Image USA II facility and moved in eight days ago, so we're excited about that. We've been with Toyota since 1988. We probably average anywhere from 165 to 200 cars a month, new and used, in the Toyota store. The service department has 22 bays.
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The President's Award encompasses all of the departments, and that includes hitting sales efficiency, testing, hitting certain numbers, making sure the customer satisfaction index is at the regional level or higher. There are classes that the service and parts personnel have to take.
How has the service department played a role in keeping the store successful?
Gault: The number of sales we have determines how many service customers we have, and parts are dependent on service. We're all in this together.
You have to evolve to meet customer requests. Toyota has been very helpful with their consulting and information to help us in that. We also have flexible scheduling to meet customers' hours. We have teams working three 12-hour days, and split that into six-day weeks. We're open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
We also work with an efficiency-based system using the Toyota processes to make everything we do as efficient as we can. We've worked with Toyota on a program called Toyota Express Maintenance (TXM), which is a whole rethinking of how you schedule and apportion your shop. You service customers faster, in less time, and with higher quality work.
How does that process work?
Belknap: You look at everything based on the type of work. In a traditional shop, you have A, B, and C techs, or you might have a mix of people on a team. You decide what they are going to do for you each day. Under this system, you tailor your use of people and structure the team around types of services (large volumes of maintenance, or large volumes of light repair). You create a separate production line for maintenance, for light repair, etc., and you have teams dedicated to that.
Have you taken an all makes/models approach at any of your stores to boost service business?
Belknap: What I've seen in certain shops is they are reaching to fill capacity by inviting other makes in. We don't really have the capacity to do that. We're pretty busy with our own customers.
What do you think is the biggest challenge that the fixed-ops department faces right now?
Belknap: Meeting customer expectations.
Gault: As time goes on, they get higher and higher. The other thing is parts. Toyota parts are expensive, and I've talked to them about this. Trying to be competitive in the market with used cars or any types of additional accessories is challenging. That's why people often go to the aftermarket.
