Renault’s new customer focus

Ian Plummer, managing director of Reagroup, Renault’s wholly-owned dealer group, number 12 in the Motor Trader Top 200, conceded there were serious problems with the previous Laguna which dragged down CSI scores.
“There were reliability issues when it was launched – there were a number of justifiable complaints. We plan to regain the quality initiative. The new Laguna is key to this.”

‘Complete satisfaction’
Plummer is focussed on improving aftersales standards and said the group was focussed on improving customer service in sales and aftersales.
The dealer group continues to offer its Renault Minute service without appointment programme, aimed at providing immediate, on-the-spot servicing for Renault cars and vans. The programme also offers a free 25-point before-and-after safety check. Benefits of the Renault Minute programme has helped push up revenues in the servicing and repairs business.
A monthly customer satisfaction report gives sales executives specific feedback. “This enables a sales executive to compare their CSI performance against the branch overall,” explained Plummer.
He said while the CSI survey asked questions such as whether the customer would return and if they would recommend the service to a friend, the main focus for Renault was satisfaction.
“The key factor we grade ourselves on is asking the customer whether they were completely satisfied with the experience of the dealership.”
He pointed out that the brand’s new E4 excellence plan (see panel) has paid dividends at the flagship Renault West dealership.
“At the beginning of the year we were behind the national average but now we are above. We have made a six point increase in aftersales customer satisfaction. Year-to-date we are the top performing group within the Renault network in sales and third best in aftersales. We are making strong progress and that’s coming about from the desire to make sure that we are the showcase for Renault.”

Consistency
The E4 plan is aimed at introducing consistency throughout the Renault network. All branches have information boards in sales and service managers’ offices to ensure figures are evaluated daily.
Comparison is also conducted regularly between local and regional dealerships.
“You get results and feedback daily as opposed to weekly or monthly. Every morning the scores are discussed with staff, evaluating the results from the previous day,” said Plummer.
When a customer calls in to book an appointment the details are recorded on a job card and printed out. The service advisor gets that information at D-1, the day before the appointment, and will call the customer to confirm the details, as well as offer transport assistance. On the day of the booking the advisor makes sure the customer is catered for – there is a shuttle bus that goes to local train/tube stations for customer convenience.

Staff turnover
Plummer said one of the problems with maintaining consistent levels of quality was turnover of staff in city dealerships.
“With city centre locations you are constrained for space, and staff have more opportunities to find other jobs. It’s a fact that it’s easier to work less hours, not weekends and make more money in other professions.”
But he was relatively pleased with the turnover rate achieved at Reagroup, at around 20 per cent.
“We have introduced bonus incentives for improved sales and CS indicators, which has helped improve staff turnover. When people buy in they actually start getting stuck in to the difficult part of keeping customers happy.”

Job descriptions
A key area of improvement has been a clearer description of each employee’s job so they are aware of what is to be expected.
“We have broken down jobs to bite-sized chunks. Ensuring understanding is vital. We have a daily morning meeting in service where the key players – the service advisors, workshop controller, parts department staff, and service manger discuss. We evaluate the previous day’s business.”
If there are parts awaiting delivery or if a technician is late arriving or has called in sick, the job can be immediately allocated to someone else without wasting time.
“Our standard job definitions ensure employees are fully aware of their roles and places in the entire aftersales process to ensure that the vehicle gets repaired or serviced properly. It is there to ensure a hole is not left by staff being absent.
“For any customer in any dealership, even if everything is fantastic – the car is looked after brilliantly, given back on time, cleaned and looks good – if the customer has had to chase to get information, or if there is a delay, or a fault, then it is very unlikely you are going to get ‘completely satisfied’ feedback. So communication with customers is the single most important factor that we are working on.”
Plummer said the dealership had a 60 per cent aftermarket CSI score, well above the national average.

Clean workshops
Another issue Plummer alluded to was the standards and organisation of workshops, admitting that in the past some were cleaner than others in the group.
“A poorly run workshop will likely produce poor quality.”
He said there was an emphasis on clean workshops,
“If you trip over you can injure yourself or damage the car. This results in a delay to the repair and a new part needs to be sourced. Everything should be in order and the technicians should take responsibility, with an internal audit carried out every week. Maintaining a clean and precise workshop is important.”

Parts and service focus
Focus has also switched to improving parts availability. Frank Doggett, parts manager, said the department had been given the processes to improve.
“It has been useful for me to get consistency in our practices and apply that to customers. We are getting a much more solid, consistent success rate from customers simply because we are consistent. The staff now know what they need to do at each part of the customer interaction. We encourage staff to be very proactive with their communication to eliminate the need for the customer to contact us.”
“Customer satisfaction year-to-date is 75.8 per cent, exceeding the national average of 72 per cent,” he claimed.
Andrew Feehilly, Renault West’s aftersales manager, said he was focussed on improving communication between departments and instilling a right-first-time process.
“We have very strong communication between us and the parts department.”
He said the aftersales department was always present in the morning meetings to discuss the previous day and the business for that day.
“We are focussed on following the right-first-time process. We try to ensure the right parts are available to avoid having to order parts, resulting in delay to the job. This also results in having to provide a courtesy car and keeping the car at the workshop over night.”
He said with more communication between technicians and the parts department, parts were more quickly available than they used
to be.
“We have moved very fast-moving parts directly to the back counter. Additionally, we have implemented an inter-company parts sourcing system. So wherever possible we can run a vehicle off-road requirement. Within the workshop we will try to source those parts from one of our sister dealerships from within London or even their satellites. This results in helping profitability because VOR comes at a cost – it increases the chances of getting the vehicle out the same day, where in the past it may have had to stay over night.”
He explained that all pre-pick parts were ordered as early as possible to ensure they were in stock quickly to avoid having the vehicle off road.
“It has worked very well, increasing our margins. It has also had an impact on CSI scores too. There has been a bonus linked to this and it has helped push staff to achieve more.”
Plummer added: “If you get the processes right you are more efficient – the technician does not waste time looking for parts, the parts ordering is done more effectively, resulting in not only more quality but more revenue too. Quality is the start point – not a follow-on indicator.”