What did you do in "Customer Service Training" this year? Did you have an in house seminar? Did you have ongoing Training? What subjects did you cover? How did they relate to your Dealership Culture?

These are some of the questions you need to answer.

Why?

If you did not Sell as many Cars this year or Sell as much Service as you needed to and you plan on selling more next year, then the 1st order of business is to decide what worked for you this year and what did not.

This would start with evaluating every aspect of Customer Service that your Dealership provides from the front to the back end.

By the way, when I say the words "Customer Service" do you automatically think of the back end?

You shouldn't.

The term Customer Service includes all facets of working with the Customer including Sales, Follow Up, Marketing, Referral Generation, Problem Solving, New Product Introduction and Retention.

It is not an exclusive term which removes the Sales from the Customer Service equation.

Sales is Customer Service whether it is New or Used Car Sales or Service Sales.

In evaluating the results your Customer Service delivered, be specific. Some questions you might ask include the following.

If you did not sell as many new cars as you projected, then what aspect of the Customer Service equation did not meet standards?

Did you have Sales Training for everyone? Phone Sales Training? Scripts provided or did you just wing it?

Did you have doom and gloom sessions or were there sessions where problems were identified and solutions were trained on?

Did you personally survey a minimum of 20% of the sold customers and not rely on the factory? Did you track those results? Were those results communicated? Trained on?

Did you practice "shadow a sales person today" at least once a week?

Did you celebrate Success? How?

In the Service Department nearly all of the same questions need to be asked.

Did you sell as much Service as you wanted to? Why not? What were some of the obstacles preventing you from reaching that Goal?

Did you Train? What subjects did you Train on? Did you have regular training sessions or did you just have a meeting "when things were not going well?" Did you have doom and gloom sessions?

Did you practice the "advisor in my pocket for a day" training technique?

Did you personally survey a minimum of 20% of your Service Customers without relying on the factory? Ddi you communicate and train on those reuslts?

Did you celebrate Success?

Customer Service has been described as a "The Art of Courtesy and Sales."

This "Art" needs to be practiced and trained on. Make 2011 your best year by training everyone in Customer Service.