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I am seeking best practices for collecting email addresses from existing customers

The easiest one is to put a giveaway bowl in the service waiting area (giveaway a Starbucks gift certificate) - make some fill out cards for people to fill out and drop in the bowl. Make the lines for filling in: Name, Cell Phone, Best Email Address.

Another way to do it is to create fill out cards on recycled paper (maybe put a picture of some grass or a tree) and tell people you're doing your part to save the planet by not sending anymore mail. Tell them you'll be sending out special offers by email and if they'd fill in the card you'll start emailing them instead of clogging their mailbox.

You could even make it a poster that looks like it is very "earthy" to hang over the service writers' heads stating "We want to help save the planet, but we need your email address to do that! ....please give your best email address to your <insert dealership name> service representative."

There are lots of other ways to do it, but these are the simplest.
 
I think the key is to give them a reason to give it to you.

You know 80+% of the people probably have email these days. If you just ask say... "hey man can I have your email address?" I'm going to say NO. But if I'm checking out from getting my oil change in service... and you take some time and tell me about how if I give you my email you will send me coupons to save money on my next oil change... I'm in!

I think the key is all in how you ask for it. You know they have email... you have to figure out the right approach to get them to give it up.

As Alex said, "going green" is a good one.
 
I used many of the tips the Alex mentioned but we also ran a program where we spiffed the service writer who obtained the most email addressees each week. Unlike your pre-Madonna salesmen most writers are happy with a $25 spiff.

A good service writer makes it part of there write up process and becomes so comfortable asking for it that customers don't even realize they gave it him/her.
 
We started a gas card give away for people who filled out a questionnaire about our dealership, including email address. Instead of sending people bs deals and flooding there inbox, I started sending incredible offers like a $10 oil change. The response was phenomenal, now we actually have people coming in asking if they can give us their email address! I think the real important part is not to abuse the right they have given us with there email addresses.
 
As Matt said above, a big key is explaining how their email address will be used and getting the customers buy-in (read:permission). There is a big differance between transactional email and promotional email. Sending non permission based email can quickly get you labeled as SPAM and - if you are using an in house application to send it - get you IP blacklisted.
 
Pay the Cashier $1 an email and you will be suprised how many you get, and how happy your cashier is! The statement is "We would like to do our part in going green, If you have an email address we can send you our specials without using any paper or postage. What address would you like them sent to?......