Missed calls were piling up for one dealership group’s region, but they didn’t even realize it.
Not until Mike LoCascio, regional director of fixed operations for Kunes Auto Group, created an email alert system to track them.
The results surprised him.
"We have some stores where you get 40, 50 emails a day for missed calls," LoCascio told CDG News. "Until we saw those, we didn't realize how many missed calls we truly had."
And that’s just one little tweak that has made a big difference for the group.
For context: LoCascio started working in auto retail as a porter about 26 years ago.
He’s spent the last 15 years with Kunes Auto, which owns 54 auto and RV stores across the Midwest. The rapidly expanding group went from 15 dealerships in 2016 to the total they have now.
And LoCascio, who oversees 14 of those stores, thinks a well-run fixed ops department helps fuel growth.
Here are some ways he does it in his region, starting with those phones.
Phone fix: Some Kunes stores were missing 30-40% of incoming service calls. Now, that number has dropped to 8%. He did it with a simple process tweak.
Every missed call triggers an automatic email to LoCascio and the service manager.
Someone from the store then must return the call within 10 minutes, and reply-all to the email thread to confirm.
If no reply appears within 10 minutes, LoCascio or a manager follows up immediately to ask: Who’s calling that customer back?
And while AI agents handle some phone traffic, the call-backs come from a human.
“Just simply monitoring the phones and making sure they get picked up has shown us roughly an eight or nine percent increase in daily volume," LoCascio said. "I think that's something that gets overlooked at a lot at dealerships.”
Speaking of customer contact, LoCascio also went to work on MPI follow-through.
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Between the lines: Getting technicians to record MPI videos wasn't the hard part. Getting advisors to send them was.
LoCascio shoots for 90% technician capture internally. But he found that even at 100% technician adoption, only about 30% of videos were making it to customers.
His fix: A wall of shame, of sorts. A leaderboard posted in the break room showing every technician's video capture and send rates.
"Organically, the guys that were at the top of the list immediately found themselves reaching out to the guys at the bottom," LoCascio said.
He suggests getting one person up to 100%, then going from there.
What's the easiest way to eat an elephant?” LoCascio said. “One bite at a time."
By the numbers: Better MPI policies have paid off.
They group now has better CSI scores, higher hours per RO, and faster approvals.
“It's amazing what a customer will approve of when they feel like they're in control," LoCascio said.
Kunes includes free oil changes and a lifetime powertrain warranty on qualifying vehicles with every sale. (Some warranties come with stipulations.)
Staying busy: Another operational tweak that LoCascio found has cut used-car turn time by about three days across the group.
The system has two parts:
Stock those stalls: Every night before close, service advisors place unfinished or next-day vehicles directly into technician stalls with keys and paperwork ready.
"It seems to be immediate that they start working on that car, because there's something ready for them," LoCascio said.
Without it, he said techs can burn 20 minutes getting settled before they start the tinkering.
Parts get pre-pulled for used cars. The second a used vehicle hits the lot, the parts department is notified and grabs the oil filter, wipers, air filter, and cabin filter for that specific vehicle before the request comes in.
"The removal of that time chasing those parts down has increased our used car turn rate tremendously," LoCascio said.
Bottom line: Little tweaks here and there can add up, help earn more money, and of course, fuel growth.
"If the culture is there, the revenue will follow,” LoCascio said.
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