Customer Trust Easily Lost, Not Easily Regained

`It’s always important to take the time and look at larger market trends and to think about how those trends may affect the Canadian aftermarket and its many service providers. In this issue of SSGM, we are pleased to have not only J.D. Power & Associates, but also Dennis DesRosiers crunching the numbers of the auto market in Canada. Both provide excellent reading and insights that will be useful to service providers to build on. As well, we would like to welcome David Meunier of TACT Inc. who will be providing SSGM readers with valuable business management knowledge which has proven invaluable to many service shops across Canada.

It is interesting that on the heals of these J.D. Power and DesRosiers studies, came news that General Motors finally had something positive to report, that the company earned a profit in the fourth quarter. While welcome, General Motors still has many problems to overcome; and there are some lessons in the company’s troubles that service providers can learn from.

There are many reasons for General Motors’ difficulties, as well as those with the other Big Three North American auto makers. The two biggest, in my opinion, have been their slowness to learn and change with the times, and losing the trust of their customers. Even as General Motors, Ford and Chrysler saw the changes happening, the companies for the longest time refused to change their business models, and some trying over the last few years to compete on price in an effort to retain customers.

As this was going on, the automakers found they had lost the trust and confidence of their customers. It’s not uncommon to hear people say they simply do not trust the Big Three to make decent automobiles anymore, and they are ready to recount any number of stories of poor workmanship, design and customer service and support when something went wrong with their vehicle. I have friends who will not, under any circumstance and no matter how much the price is discounted, buy a Big Three-made car. Their trust and loyalty has been lost.

Many service providers now find themselves in a similar situation. By not taking the time to look at how the market is changing, what customers want from a service shop, and an unwillingness to change business practices to meet those challenges, many shops find themselves in trouble. They have lost the trust of their customers by not investing in business management tools and training, and keeping the skill levels of the technicians current and with the tools they need to do their jobs. Customers notice this, especially when after several times of bringing a vehicle in to be maintained and being told the job can’t be done, or done poorly. That has caused many to lose trust in the service provider, and once that trust is lost, competing on price is not going to regain that lost customer confidence.

That is why an investment in time to understand what is happening in the Canadian vehicle market is so important, as well as time invested in taking management training and in the tools necessary for running a successful business. Without that understanding and commitment to invest in what needs to be done, times will only get tougher.