Initially, I heard this concept from Mr. Syed Omer, Ex- General Manager, Customer First Department, Indus Motor Company Limited(IMC) in 2015. The inspiration from this concept ignited action and pushed our dealership as one team toward greater challenge and growth. As a result, our dealership has achieved Toyota’s Best of The Best Dealership Award in 2018.

Best in Town Philosophy:

‘The key philosophy of the Best in Town dealership is exceeding customer expectations. How you can make yours customers happy? In every interaction, we are having with customers on the dealership floor like selling the car or fixing the car make sure the customer is smiling. If we can do that we are the Best in Town’.

Let me share with you a story of “Three Dentists in Pakistan” to explain the thoughts of Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor Corporation on what a dealership should value and stand for.

The first dentist put up a sign ‘The Best Dentist in The World. The second one says ‘. The Best Dentist in Pakistan’. Lastly, the third says ‘The Best Dentist in Town’. Which dentist do you think the people in town would trust and go to see? I think we know the answer.

If we reflect on this story on our business, we cannot make customers happy by just promoting the total number of vehicles. Becoming the Best in Town is what is most important. Affiliates, plants, distributors, and dealerships should always aim to be the Best in Town company that people in their respective towns trust the most.

Best in Town dealership concept is distinctive to each dealership. As every town is unique and has its own dynamics like demographics, competition, customer expectation, and market size. Dealerships must focus to provide superior customer experience to one customer at a time. One-by-one, a true essence of Best in Town dealership. The hospitality industry, restaurants, and retail stores are the epitome of our automotive industry. Distributors and dealerships should benchmark thier dealership’s customer experience with them.

How a dealership can be a Best in Town dealership?

Before becoming a Best in Town dealership, first we have to develop a Best in Town vision at our dealerships. The dealership’s long-term vision is not only aligned with the distributor’s vision but also 3S+CR departments and team members have to align to this shared vision. By cascading the vision to all departments, it eradicates the communication barriers and opens up a multidimensional space in which everything is possible. Lack of alignment is the number one hurdle between goals and their execution. Studies suggest that only 7% of employees “fully understand their company’s vision and business strategies and what is expected of them to achieve the common goals. The cure is literal, cross-functional collaboration, peer-to-peer, and team-to-team.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Superior customer service isn’t just for those who face the customers on the service floor or who handle complaints. It’s not only limited to the service advisors or sales persons; it also extends to people inside the dealership or an organization who deal with each other. Really, it’s all connected. It’s a cross-functional collaboration, the second key element of the Best in Town dealership.

It’s a collaboration among all functions across the dealership to deliver the Best in Town customer experience. Sales, Service, Parts, Customer Relations, Used Cars, Finance, and HR work together as one team to ensure a seamless customer experience at the dealership floor to keep the customer happy. From gate to gate all customers’ touch points matter. Every employee in every department at the dealership needs must ask these questions to each other to deliver exceptional services.

How can I make things better for you?
What can I do that will help you better serve your customer?

In this way, the work will flow better. Every dealership staff including office boys, security guards, and janitorial staff must know their roles and primary responsibilities. If the customer in the customer lounge says to the office boy “Uh” this cup is not clean and the spoon has a stain on it. This negligence is trace back to the office boy. Customer service has been compromised at that moment. If the service reception floor or customer lounge is not clean, this negligence trace back to the janitorial team or administration department. If a customer comes for his/her first free service and his detail was not properly entered in the DMS (Dealer Management System) by the sales department, it traces back to the sales department and customer experience is compromised. So every dealership staff is interconnected with each other to deliver heart touching experience. In a Cross-functional environment, everyone is working to achieve the organization’s overall strategy, and aligning goals gets everyone on the same page and moving in the same direction.
The ideal example of cross-functional collaboration is “Sales sell the first car, service sells the rest”. By working together, Sales, After-Sales and Customer Relations can better impact customer loyalty and customer retention.

Employee Experience (EX)

Lastly, Employee Experience(EX) is another key element of the Best in Town dealership. I am a big advocate of Employee Experience at the dealership and wrote a lot about it. Every dealership management has a vision for Best in Town customer experience on the dealership floor. Improving customer experience is difficult to get right because the primary hurdle is translating the vision for a Best in Town customer experience into action at the front line. I believe that creating a great customer experience requires having an engaged and energized workforce, one that can translate individual experience into a satisfying gate-to-gate customer journey. Normally, dealership management has less focus on employee experience. Dealerships must conduct an employee survey to collect the voice of employees(VOE) as it allows the dealers to identify the gaps and areas of opportunity for Kaizan to improve employee’s experience.
Dealerships must have a dealership staff recognition system in place to keep them motivated and reach their daily business goals. Dealerships must have Employee of The Month or Winner rewarding criteria to encourage the staff on monthly basis to boost their motivation and loyalty.
The philosophy of the Best in Town dealership is to exceed customer expectations. How you can make the customer happy?