Your Service Lounge - What do customers like MOST?

[Jeff Kershner]

What do your customers like MOST about your dealer's Service Waiting Room / Lounge?
Is it a "Waiting room" or an actual "Lounge".

I realize this isn't the usual fancy "tech"related topic we usually have here in DealerRefresh but as an industry we do talk about experience A LOT. But I don't see a lot of conversations around the Service Lounge Experience.

What do you do, or what amenities do you provide your customers while they are waiting for their vehicle to be repaired?

OR what would you LIKE for your service lounge to offer?

Example: Free Wifi access (that the sales department connects to on their phone becuase facebook isn't blocked)

 

[Steve Stauning]

Probably a little off topic, but there are two HUGE fails that I see all too often with Service Waiting Areas today:

1. WiFi that isn't working. Millennials expect to be able to connect no matter where they are, and anyone trying to conduct some business while waiting for a repair become annoyed at non-working WiFi. Surprisingly, about 40% of the dealerships I work with today have a non-working WiFi connection when I first arrive.

2. Free treats/snacks that run out. I see this in about 8 out of 10 service waiting areas: Empty popcorn machines; empty coffee pots; empty water bottles; empty doughnut boxes; empty cookie trays. Why do you even bother to provide these things if you cannot consistently provide them all day? What so special about the 7 AM arrival that entitles them to coffee and a doughnut, but the 10 AM appointment gets nothing?

Paying attention to the little things really matters to customers in 2016.

 

[ggarvin]

The WIFI not working is a great rant... that has got to be almost 50% of dealers and no one knows what to do or how to contact or worse, they don't seem to care about it. They just shrug their shoulders.

Here's another one (sorry Jeff this isn't exactly what's most important but more about huge areas of EASY improvement): The dealer invests in a shuttle driver but there is no instruction on when/where/how it works. I've seen more people unsure how to use or what to do about it.

I was recently at McCluskey Chevrolet in Cincinnati and they had an outstanding waiting area (full of snacks in the afternoon, so we know this is good for Steve). But great little cubicles for working. Working internet, cool vibe and comfortable areas to watch tv or relax. Great place.

 

[Dave Brooks]

What do your customers like MOST about your dealer's Service Waiting Room / Lounge?
Is it a "Waiting room" or an actual "Lounge".

I realize this isn't the usual fancy "tech"related topic we usually have here in DealerRefresh but as an industry we do talk about experience A LOT. But I don't see a lot of conversations around the Service Lounge Experience.

What do you do, or what amenities do you provide your customers while they are waiting for their vehicle to be repaired?

OR what would you LIKE for your service lounge to offer?

Example: Free Wifi access (that the sales department connects to on their phone becuase facebook isn't blocked)

We provide coffee(3 different varieties), bottled water, cookies, WiFi on a separate SSID and comfortable seating along with the big flat screen tv...

 

[johno]

Our customer lounge area has two large screen Tvs. One which displays regular TV and the second the status of the customer’s vehicle in service. This feature is integrated with our DMS and automatically updates every 5 minutes. This information rotates with displays of our vehicle inventory and our monthly sales ads as well.

We have a separate wireless that has 5G capability and 100 Mbps in speed so all clients can easily surf websites or play high bandwidth online games at their leisure. ( Of interest: the wireless router is connected to an auto RESET plug , this tech continually monitors the WIfi connection and if the Reset plug notes the wireless goes off line it reboots the modem automatically ).

Multiple types of coffee and teas as well as chilled water.

Nice seating and two desks where they can sit and work from.

John O.

 

[craigh]

http://www.richmondhilltoyota.com/facility



What do customers like most?
A coffee shop that serves food, video game stations, work stations, portable nail salon and massage tables.
TVs you say? 9 of them in a 3x3 grid, 3 separate viewing TVs and 19 of them in a row on the other wall.