Automotive News - September 23, 2019 - Best Practices Supplement - A29

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019 | 29
F E R M A N C H E V R O L E T A N D F E R M A N M A Z D A , TA M PA , F L A .

Bridge the gap between sales, service
Weekly meetings bring
departments together,
improve coordination
Published in Automotive News May 6, 2019

David Muller

dmuller@crain.com

he walls between sales and service at
dealerships can be both physical and
metaphorical. Brad Wise, general manager of Ferman Chevrolet and Ferman Mazda in Tampa, Fla., has recognized the divide.
A barrier between the people working in sales
and service is common at a lot of dealerships,
Wise said. He describes it thusly: Salespeople can
sometimes be "all over the place," while the service department operates more "by the books."
Those two dynamics can "sometimes breed
some tension," Wise said.
To help unify the departments, Wise about a
year ago launched weekly fixed operations
meetings that bring in personnel from other
departments, namely sales and finance and
insurance. Lessons have been learned.
"A lot of the sales guys didn't realize the
amount of gross profits that's generated on
the fixed side," Wise said.
Seeing that demonstrated in the meetings
week to week got the attention of the people
working on the other side of the business.
"Too many times, [sales] people just think,
you know, what they do out there [in service]
doesn't have an impact on their paycheck,
which it does," Wise said. "Service advisers
play a huge role in whether customers come
back again for their next car."

Learning experience
Sales personnel were also not always privy to
the volume of repair orders and the controlled
chaos that service advisers deal with each day.
Added to that: When people come into the
showroom to buy a car, they're generally happy
because it's an exciting event. But the same can't
always be said for the people taking their vehicles in for repair.
Dealing with unhappy customers day in and
day out "wears on you," Wise said.
The fixed-ops-plus-sales meetings double
as an educational session, with some motivational reading thrown in. Wise selects relevant
material to share. Right now, the group is
reading Customers for Life: How to Turn That
One-Time Buyer Into a Lifetime Customer, by
legendary Texas dealer Carl Sewell. Past read-

The Ferman meetings serve an educational function. General Manager Brad Wise, foreground,
chooses books for discussion that emphasize the shared mission of dealership personnel.
At Ferman Chevrolet and Ferman
Mazda in Tampa, Fla., weekly fixed
ops meetings that include sales
personnel are helping the sales and
service departments bridge the divide
that often exists between the two in
many dealerships.

ings included The Energy Bus, by leadership
coach and author Jon Gordon.
Reading these books chapter by chapter
helps salespeople understand both the service adviser's role and what happens in fixed
operations, Wise said. And it underscores that
the two sides of the business have a shared
mission. It's not just to sell cars but to give
people a good and lasting product.
Since launching the meetings, coordination
between the departments has improved, Wise
said, and there seems to be a better understanding of staffers' various roles, he said.

Sharing perks
Building that understanding with store
leaders is also key.
The service department can be overlooked,
and "service advisers are underappreciated ...
by executive teams sometimes," Wise said.
While dealership executives often get certain perks, such as tickets to sporting events,
at Ferman, they make sure they are sharing
such perks with the service department, he
said. Given the adage that "sales sells the first

car and service sells the rest," service personnel should enjoy any success that the rest of
the dealership has, Wise said.
"Our service advisers see our guests more
than any other employee," he said.
The service department is also where one of
the industry's largest challenges exists: the
shortage of technicians and the ongoing effort
to attract new workers to the field.
That means a dealership's technicians "have
to have some recruiting talent and expertise,
too," Wise said. Some of his fixed ops personnel
go to job fairs to meet with young people interested in the trade. "The recruiting aspect of the
job is an underestimated thing," he said.
The elevated focus on recognizing service
isn't meant to take anything away from the
sales department. "New car [selling] really
makes it all go," Wise said.
"We all win if sales can be aggressive and
make as many sales as possible and service
does more than what's expected," he said.
"Long term, we should be able to weather just
about anything that comes our way."
The Ferman Chevrolet and Mazda stores together sold about 5,000 new and used vehicles in 2018. The Chevy store was the No. 1
dealership for that brand in the Tampa market, Wise said. It's one of the oldest Chevrolet
dealerships in the country, having been
founded in 1895 as a bicycle company and
gaining the Chevy franchise in 1921. Ferman
Automotive Group in total operates 15 vehicle dealerships and five Harley-Davidson
motorcycle dealerships. n

Automotive News - September 23, 2019 - Best Practices Supplement

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