Making money on your service area foot traffic

A maintenance trip to your dealership can turn into an upgrade if you offer customers a great experience.

Fewer people are going to car dealerships to browse these days. This is a simple fact, but one that could be troubling as you attempt to keep your bottom line strong. If individuals are doing most of their shopping at home, that means all of your efforts to engage on the sales floor will go to waste. This behavior shift now requires dealerships to monetize other interactions with guests and seize consumer attention when they aren't necessarily there to buy a new vehicle. An individual who has come in to have maintenance performed in the service area could be converted into a shopper through the careful application of captivating information kiosks.

"A customer waiting for service can be thinking about your present lineup."

Time to upgrade
When someone is having service performed on his or her car at a dealership instead of a neighborhood mechanic, it's likely the vehicle has something specific happening that warrants a visit to the dealer, and quite possibly has a significant number of miles as well. These individuals, despite wanting to get repairs instead of a replacement in this one instance, are a great prospect to buy a new car. A sales associate implying that it might be better to upgrade than to get the current car issue fixed may be seen as too forward. However, allowing an individual to come to this conclusion on his or her own could meet with significantly more success. This is where a self-guided interactive digital kiosk experience comes in.

Millennial shoppers especially are eager to deal with the browsing process on their own terms, so enabling this connection on the dealership floor could help them come to their own decision. A well-designed kiosk with smart software can display the full inventory of vehicles and brands available at that dealership. While a customer waits for the determination of the issues that are occurring, a digital kiosk can present more than just the new cars available to purchase but can offer tailored options so someone can see what colors and accessories will look like and can educate people on the value of a newer car over repairs. By the time the customer is presented an estimate from servicing, he or she may have committed to the idea of a replacement vehicle.

A customer may be at the dealership to get service, but you can subtly sell a whole new car.

Captivating presence
How do you convince a dealership guest to browse your lineup of vehicles if he or she is there for something else? It helps for the interactive kiosks to be attractive and visually compelling, with large screens and lag-free visual performance. A smaller kiosk could draw the attention of an individual waiting for service and be specifically designed to offer the benefits of when to consider a new vehicle vs. completing that particular repair. In turn, the kiosk can lead someone through every available car and truck model.

The power of a large screen is not only to captivate, but also display dozens of vehicles on one screen, especially convenient for smaller dealerships with less space. The service section of a dealership doesn't have the display models of cars that are arrayed in the showroom. However, with a touchscreen digital kiosk, shoppers can learn what they need to know about the vehicle of their choice. The simple addition of this technological tool can add sales potential to a highly trafficked part of the dealership, granting valuable extra exposure to the new vehicles on offer.