{"id":5796,"date":"2025-04-23T10:50:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/?p=5796"},"modified":"2025-04-23T10:50:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:50:49","slug":"hot-topic-dealers-approach-to-keeping-customers-engaged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/hot-topic-dealers-approach-to-keeping-customers-engaged\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot topic: Dealer’s approach to keeping customers engaged"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the April issue of UCD<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing the dealership\u2019s number pop up on caller ID, can make many buy-here, pay-here customers\u2019 hearts skip a beat, as the call is usually seeking a behind payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for Charles Pompey\u2019s customers at Car-Lotta Credit and Car Sales in Kingston, Pennsylvania, the calls are often to just check in and touch base. Those courtesy calls to customers who are current on their payments have kept the dealership engaged with those borrowers and helped it grow.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\n\"
Charles Pompey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cYear-over-year, sales are up, charge-offs are down, and we\u2019ve had portfolio growth,\u201d Pompey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pompey and general manager Brian Malet require their two collectors to call all their current 1,100 customers each quarter. The calls are to see how the customer is doing and thank them for their business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbout 70 percent of customers are on autopay. We don\u2019t have regular contact with them,\u201d Pompey said. \u201cMost of the time, when our collectors are contacting them, it\u2019s a negative contact. This is taking a couple of minutes and making a pleasant call. It\u2019s a good way to remind them it\u2019s not always bad to talk with us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s helped make collections more face-forward with the customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of people get really held up on sales. My point of view is we can have a bad sales month here and there and it\u2019s not the end of the world,\u201d Pompey said. \u201cA bad collections month, it\u2019s a lot harder to come back from. I feel like at most dealerships, the salesperson is the face of the dealership. I\u2019m trying to reverse that and make collections and customer service the voice of the dealership.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a good way for collectors to also update information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou get to talk to the customer but a huge bonus is it is a great information grabber,\u201d Malet said. \u201cIn three to four months, things change. We put all that new information in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea for the quarterly calls courtesy came out of a 20 Group meeting Pompey and Malet attended. At the time, their rollovers were lagging and their payoffs were high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were trying to figure out a way to get better information and retain customers,\u201d Pompey said. \u201cWe sat down and this is what we came up with. It\u2019s proven even more fruitful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially it was hard to get their collectors on board with making the calls. But after they got used to it, they welcomed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malet jumps in occasionally to assist with the courtesy calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The calls and the feedback from customers led to the dealership making changes. The dealership moved from a three-month to a one-year warranty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pompey and Malet know the strategy is not for every dealership, though they have seen benefits from what they call \u201cpreventive care.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard some pushback when we\u2019ve brought it up at 20 Groups like, \u2018Aren\u2019t you opening a can of worms calling a customer when there\u2019s nothing wrong?\u2019\u201d Pompey said. \u201cThat\u2019s a possibility. It\u2019s like going to a doctor. It\u2019s preemptive to make sure you continue to feel good. If you find something, it\u2019s better to find it than to never have found it and it gets worse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For dealers who do start the calls, Pompey and Malet suggest giving it time for the program to take off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou need to commit to it for a minimum of a year,\u201d Pompey said. \u201cThere needs to be an attitude change from collectors and customers being open to taking the call and thinking that you\u2019re not calling because you want something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the program has helped their collectors become better listeners and more empathic, paying off with the better collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith any good collector, they know they have to listen,\u201d Malet said. \u201cThat\u2019s the biggest point of all it. You contact a customer and it\u2019s not just one of those calls where you\u2019re just getting on the phone and looking to get off the phone. You listen, and when you listen, they spill the beans about a lot of things, whether they are having an issue with their car or a payment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the April issue of UCD Seeing the dealership\u2019s number pop up on caller ID, can make many…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5797,"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-5796","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\/5796","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/niada.com\/dashboard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}