{"id":5412,"date":"2024-11-26T12:30:59","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T18:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/?p=5412"},"modified":"2024-11-26T12:31:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T18:31:00","slug":"dealer-spotlight-rainey-builds-reputation-on-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/dealer-spotlight-rainey-builds-reputation-on-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealer spotlight: Rainey builds reputation on service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Article from the November issue of UCD<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Rainey likes to say he\u2019s patterned his business after another Georgia company famous for its customer service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI manage this business in such a way that we could be called the Chick-fil-A of the car business,\u201d said Rainey, the owner of Rainey Used Cars in Albany, Georgia. \u201cThat\u2019s always been my goal because I know service is the heartbeat of the buy-here, pay-here operation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing to 10 locations in Georgia within a 135-mile area, service has remained at the top of priority for each store. Rainey points out keeping cars on the road keeps the customer paying and brings them back to buy cars in the future. The dealership has invested heavily into its service departments, with 20 service bays and 1,500 vehicles in its private salvage yard for parts for the inventory of Toyota, Honda and Chevrolet models. The salvaged parts allow Rainey to control parts costs and cut down time waiting for parts to arrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rainey said they are prepared to get a car in the bay and repair it as soon as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you can\u2019t service what you sell, your business is not going to prosper,\u201d Rainey said. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to make a customer happy when you sell a car. The difficulty is making them smile when they leave the service department. That is the difficult thing to do. That is something my father insisted on. I have certainly followed the same path.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert\u2019s father sold his first car in 1957, just a year before he was born. Rainey has been a part of the business his entire life, enjoying the multiple facets of the industry and operations. He\u2019s seen his dealership grow over the years, which he credits to his staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not better because we\u2019re bigger. We\u2019re bigger because we\u2019re better,\u201d Rainey said. \u201cIn the BHPH business, you can outgrow your infrastructure so quickly. You\u2019ve got to be careful with that. I always tell people, it\u2019s not the brick and mortar of these walls in these buildings that we operate out of. It\u2019s the hearts and souls of our people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rainey employs 275 people at the 10 locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe put a lot of emphasis on our customers but we also take that same emphasis and put it on our employees,\u201d Rainey said. \u201cWe certainly try to create a great work environment. We try to make this as close to being a family experience as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past few years, the Rainey dealership has used its social media with a creative marketing campaign to highlight many of the employees. That campaign was in addition to videos capturing testimonials from customers about the service they received from Rainey Used Cars. Some pointed out how they took a chance on them and helped them out. It reinforces his approach to the dealership and the importance of service to their segment of customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe live and work in the credit-challenged community. I think one thing that people don\u2019t understand is the importance of what we do,\u201d Rainey said. \u201cIt is being able to provide transportation to the people with less than perfect credit. That\u2019s a risk we take every day. It\u2019s important\u2026There\u2019s a lot of credit-challenged people and they need a car to get to work. Buy-here, pay-here keeps the economy going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of his approach to service, he\u2019s also changed his strategy. He points out he didn\u2019t have a website until six years ago. He\u2019s realized the need to make it easy for customers to buy a car with the ability to apply for loans, get approved and search inventory all on their website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no friction. That\u2019s the way you\u2019ve got to make your car business because people are going to go the easiest route,\u201d Rainey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rainey enjoys the opportunity to pass on the knowledge he\u2019s gained over the years to other dealers. He invites them to come to the dealership and spend the day observing and asking questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got smart in one spot and that was in the buy-here, pay-here world,\u201d Rainey said. \u201cThat\u2019s the spot I\u2019m going to stay around\u2026We do have people that have called and come to visit. We are certainly open to that. I find a lot of joy in it. Don\u2019t think that when they come and visit us that I don\u2019t learn something from them. It\u2019s a two-way street.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Article from the November issue of UCD Robert Rainey likes to say he\u2019s patterned his business after another…\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":5413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_appearance_grid":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-industry","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}