Many car dealerships are implementing quick laning services to compete with independent shops and complete basic maintenance services quickly. However, quick lanes often fail to perform thorough vehicle inspections, missing opportunities to identify additional repair work. New technologies allow quick lanes to efficiently conduct inspections and identify further needed repairs, improving customer service and dealership profits. Dealers that successfully integrate inspections into quick lanes can match independent shops' speed while offering customers a more complete repair experience.

2. FEATURE
p. 46
M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 6 | | F I X E D O P S M A G A Z I N E
As I travel around the country and vis-
it dealerships representing a variety of
makes, the trend of implementing a quick
lane seems to be at a fever pitch.
Many dealers tell me that their manufactur-
ers are pressing that this is a critical part of
their Fixed Operations vision. They’re told
that dealerships yet to deploy a quick lane
process put significant incentive program
dollars and improved Customer Satisfac-
tion Index (CSI) scores at risk.
In addition, for years, many dealers have
allowed portions of their Fixed Ops busi-
ness to be usurped by local competitors,
who have taken much of the recurring
maintenance and less-skilled repairs such
as brakes, exhaust and tire replacements.
QUICK CASH
OR
QUICK LOSSES?
Q U I C K L A N E S C A N W O R K W E L L — W H E N D O N E C O R R E C T LY
B Y M AT T PA R S O N S

3. p. 48
All dealerships are looking for ways to stay
engaged with their customers throughout
the lifecycle ownership process. With the
average age of the U.S. vehicle fleet ap-
proaching 12 years — and an estimated
250 million vehicles on the road — there
are significant opportunities to intersect
with customers over an extended period of
time. And there are significant repair dol-
lars at stake.
On the surface, the quick lube or express
lane seems to be a no-brainer. Establish a
process that allows customers to get their
vehicle into a dealership for normal main-
tenance items (oil changes, filter check /
changes, tire rotations, fluid flushes, etc.),
perform these services in a ‘fast’ fashion
at a competitive rate and everyone wins.
But do they?
Drawbacks of Quick Lanes
Securing a steady stream of menial main-
tenance work is good if your business is
designed to support these services. But
there are potential problems.
For example, assigning mundane mainte-
nance work to Master Technicians or those
with extensive skills in automotive repair
can quickly prove to be a money-losing
venture. Dealerships that create express
lanes wind up hiring people who have con-
siderably less training and experience to
staff these functions in order to turn a fair
financial return on the jobs that are sold.
In addition, radical changes to business
processes often have to be established
in order to facilitate commitments such
as time-to-job-completion in order to be
viewed as a reasonable alternative to the
local independent operators. This may
mean dedicating special bays with unique
vehicle lifts or an oil change pit, the abil-
ity to stock commonly used parts at-the-
ready and changes to the customer recep-
tion and cashiering processes.
Finally, experienced Technicians may re-
sent the new approach because getting to
do a few of the “easy” jobs each day was
a nice reprieve from the often complicated
electronic and drivability issues they more
typically handle.
Unintended Consequences
The largest unintended consequence that
some dealers are starting to identify is that
quick-lane customers are not receiving a
very extensive or detailed multi-point in-
spection (MPI) and, all too often, high dol-
lar repair work that’s sitting right within the
facility’s four walls is going unidentified
and unquoted.
The underlying scenario that creates this
unintended consequence is often a lack of
vehicle repair knowledge, coupled with a
“quick-lane mentality” by the staff mem-
bers performing the service. The excuse
that many stores give for this is that a
quality MPI, accurate Service quotation
and presentation of results cannot be per-
formed in the timeframes established.
Dealerships that have instituted a com-
prehensive vehicle MPI process with their
traditional repair clients typically see $150
to $300 of identified upsell opportunity
per vehicle inspection completed, with a
sell rate on-the-day for strong performing
stores that ranges from $75 to $150 in ad-
ditional purchases.
SOME DEALERS ARE STARTING TO IDENTIFY
THAT QUICK-LANE CUSTOMERS ARE NOT
RECEIVING A VERY EXTENSIVE OR DETAILED
MULTI-POINT INSPECTION AND, ALL TOO OFTEN,
HIGH DOLLAR REPAIR WORK THAT’S SITTING
RIGHT WITHIN THE FACILITY’S FOUR WALLS
IS GOING UNIDENTIFIED AND UNQUOTED.

4. p. 50
By comparison, many of these same
stores have told me that when they seg-
mented out their quick-lane clients, they
could immediately see that they were not
identifying much additional work beyond
the customer’s primary concern (i.e., the
oil change). Thus the value of each quick-
lane client interaction was delivering little
additional profit to the business’s bottom
line.
Dealerships cannot afford to spend the
time, energy and expense to attract cus-
tomers to their facility and then allow them
to leave with significant undisclosed re-
pair work that could have been addressed
while the customer was there.
Fixed Ops Managers are starting to learn
that each customer driving into their Ser-
vice lane on average has a $100 bill hiding
somewhere in or on the vehicle. The ques-
tion is: what process or approach do they
have to find it?
A Developing Trend
Independent quick lube businesses don’t
need to perform a detailed MPI. Why
would they? Most have no interest in iden-
tifying additional work that they don’t have
the capabilities to perform. Dealerships,
on the other hand, are designed to perform
a thorough check of a consumer’s vehicle
and to identify items that need additional
attention from a safety, security and overall
vehicle performance perspective.
With this in mind, I see a secondary trend
occurring. Progressive dealers are deploy-
ing advanced technologies to deliver a
quality experience to every Service Opera-
tions client while maximizing the value of
that interaction.
These technology-based solutions support
a less-skilled employee in performing a full
and thorough MPI and can significantly
speed the process of both their mainline
Technicians and their quick-lane team
members.
DEALERSHIPS
CANNOT AFFORD TO
SPEND THE TIME,
ENERGY AND EXPENSE
TO ATTRACT
CUSTOMERS TO THEIR
FACILITY AND THEN
ALLOW THEM TO LEAVE
WITH SIGNIFICANT
UNDISCLOSED REPAIR
WORK THAT COULD
HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED
WHILE THE CUSTOMER
WAS THERE.

5. p. 52
M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 6 | | F I X E D O P S M A G A Z I N E
In either case, the employee can quickly
perform an MPI, capture photographic
evidence supporting repair recommenda-
tions, electronically route and instantly
price recommended services.
This process improvement enables the
Service Advisor to review any additional
Service recommendations with the cus-
tomer in a matter of minutes, all while the
standard oil change or other base mainte-
nance services are being performed.
We also see this trend in the deployment
of advanced wheel alignment stations. A
dealership I recently visited had deployed
two of these alignment stations in the quick
lane and in a matter of three minutes was
able to determine if a vehicle’s alignment
fell within the manufacturer-recommended
specifications.
The Fixed Operations Director advised me
that prior to installing this solution, the
operation was performing 10 to 15 align-
ments per month. After the install and
adoption of a process in which every ve-
hicle was checked, it was selling upward
of 150 alignments per month.
Another approach that seems to be gath-
ering momentum is to create a team-
ing environment, in which a less-skilled
employee is responsible to perform the
quick-lane services while a more seasoned
employee performs the MPI in parallel with
quick-lane services. This approach works
best in high-volume environments where
these two member teams can be kept suf-
ficiently busy throughout the day.
Providing automotive consumers with fast,
convenient and competitively priced ser-
vices is the goal of both independents and
franchised new car dealerships. Historical-
ly, the independents excelled in speed of
Service, while dealerships delivered deep
vehicle repair knowledge and extensive
Parts inventories in a more complete, al-
beit, time-consuming Service experience.
Dealerships don’t have to allow the inde-
pendents to continue to own the “speed-
of-service” component of vehicle repair.
With integrated MPIs and other advanced
technologies, dealerships can now match
the independents’ speed-of-service with-
out sacrificing a quality customer experi-
ence. That can only be found within a deal-
ership’s Fixed Operations Department.
Matt Parsons is the Vice President of
Sales & Marketing with Plymouth, Mich-
igan-based IFM Americas, a company
of Infomedia Ltd. He has spent 30 years
in support of the automotive retailing
and automotive OEM market sectors
and is an expert in how technologies
impact the automotive retailing sector
and consumer experience.
WITH THIS IN MIND,
I SEE A SECONDARY
TREND OCCURRING.
PROGRESSIVE
DEALERS ARE
DEPLOYING ADVANCED
TECHNOLOGIES TO
DELIVER A QUALITY
EXPERIENCE TO EVERY
SERVICE OPERATIONS
CLIENT WHILE
MAXIMIZING THE VALUE
OF THAT INTERACTION.