After decades of watching customers pull out of the showroom with their newly purchased Ford vehicle but pull into the nearby Sears for a battery or Midas for a muffler or Goodyear for tires or Jiffy Lube for an oil and filter change, Ford Motor Co. has decided enough is enough.
At Libertyville Lincoln Mercury, Ford has set up Quick Lane service, a shop adjacent to the dealership to handle minor service, maintenance and repairs.
Ford has opened 31 Quick Lane outlets in the last year, but the Libertyville shop is the first in Illinois. Ford hopes to open 30 more Quick Lanes at Chicagoland dealerships and 650 others nationwide by year-end.
Quick Lane is aimed at bringing consumers back to the dealership for quick, no-need-to-make-an-appointment service at prices you’d find at Sears, Midas, Goodyear or Jiffy Lube, said Bob Bremer, Midwest regional manager for Ford’s customer service division.
Ford, it appears, has awakened to the fact that when consumers are given the choice of having to take a day off to have the dealer change their oil three weeks from now or do it at their convenience, they’ll go to the first independent or franchise service facility that will do it at night or on Saturday.
“We see it as an opportunity to bring traffic back to the dealership,” Bremer said.
Traffic means people, and people mean profits.
Quick Lane is designed to handle periodic service, maintenance and repairs, such as an oil and filter change; tire and battery replacement; front-end alignment; and exhaust system, brake and shock replacement–the work that sends consumers fleeing to independents or franchise shops.
The dealerships still will have their regular service shops to handle warranty work and major repairs, while Quick Lane takes care of the small chores, Bremer said.
The key is no appointments and flexible hours. The Libertyville Quick Lane, for example, will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays.
Some dealers now provide off-hour and weekend service as well as special lanes for oil changes and minor service. The Ford program is aimed at making expanded hours and quick service the norm.
A most unusual feature is that when the vehicle is on the rack, the service technicians will be encouraged to invite the customers to the shop and show them what problems they have, Bremer said.
In the traditional dealer shop, consumers are sent to isolation in the waiting room, where they are kept at a distance from their vehicle and the technician, as if out of fear one or the other carries a disease.
There’s little chance of building rapport with a mechanic when consumers leave dealership waiting rooms without knowing who worked on their vehicle.
“We’ve gotten some tips by watching how independents operate in building interaction between technician and customer,” Bremer said.
While Bremer said Quick Lane pricing will be about the same as at independent and franchise service shops ($21 for an oil and filter change and $15 for a tire rotation, for example), he said consumer surveys taken to determine the merits of opening Quick Lane facilities found price secondary to convenience when choosing a service facility.
“Consumers said they have to wait too long for an appointment to get into a dealership and have to wait too long to get the vehicle back. They want to come in for service when they have the time and want the service done that day,” Bremer said.
“This is especially important with so many two-income families in which both spouses work, people who tell us they suffer time poverty. We haven’t been very proactive in meeting those needs,” Bremer said.
“We also look at this as a chance to improve customer loyalty, because if they’re happy with the service, they’ll be predisposed to come back and buy another new vehicle,” he said.
