Insider’s Look: A Loyalty Expert’s Point of View

Q&A With Jonathan Greene

Jon Greene is Vice President of Operations for NuCar Consulting. For the past 14 years, Jonathan has been working directly with auto dealers throughout North America to design, build and launch the most creative loyalty programs in our industry. He has personally delivered over 4,000 automotive customer loyalty seminars to dealer groups of all sizes. He can be reached at jgreene@nucarconsulting.com.

Wow, what a great response we have received this year to our Loyalty Matters. Keep hitting that send button; we really enjoy providing our readers with feedback and hope we have shared some good ideas and helpful suggestions along the way.

With the start of a new year at our heels, we thought it would be helpful to share with you some of the best questions that we have received and hope you discover something new that you can apply in your dealership in the upcoming year.

Q. How Can An Effective Loyalty Program Benefit My Dealership?

JON: First, and foremost, a loyalty program should provide a definitive reason for a customer to choose yourdealership over the competition. If your program does not contain enough value to be used on the sales floor to build value in your dealership, take a serious look at its benefits. A truly effective loyalty program should always help your salespeople close deals. Period.

Second, a truly effective loyalty program should offer service customers an earnings program that tracks their purchasing behavior and periodically rewards them based on their continued loyalty.If you can do this, your R.O. count and average gross per ticket will go up dramatically.

When a loyalty program successfully meets this basic criteria, you can rest assured you have a solid foundation to establish repeat customer relationships at your dealerships in BOTH sales and service.

Q. What Is The Biggest Mistake Dealers Make When Implementing A Loyalty Program?

JON: In an industry that tends to “wipe the board clean” and start over at the end of each month, the biggest mistake I see dealerships make when they launch a new loyalty program is not realizing that building customer loyalty is not an overnight project.

Going in, a dealership should be ready to create a culture change geared towards treating customers in a new way. They need to ensure their staff realizes that if they can “wow” a customer at each visit, that locks them closer and closer to the service department and will dramatically increase their future business opportunity.

A good loyalty program should contain enough value and creativity to allow your employees to “wow” every customer, every visit. Over time, your dealership will build customer relationships that will endure and the results will be evident.

Create a Customized Loyalty Program for Your Dealership

• Custom Points Programs
• Valuable Club Benefits
• Powerful Customer Contacts
• Complete Tracking & Ranking
• Onsite Training & Support
• Fiercely Loyal Customers