At All American Ford in Paramus and Hackensack, New Jersey, every new vehicle delivery now includes a mobile service appointment already on the books.
That’s because Fixed Ops Director Jim Sabino keeps finding new ways to perfect his plan to expand mobile offerings and help outsmart Jersey’s land restrictions.
Driving the news: Sabino shared that his latest move of driving those initial service dates to mobile meetings helps keep the service drive clear for higher-margin, more complex work, and it gets the customers hooked on mobile service.
"There's no reason for that car to come into the shop," Sabino told Daily Dealer Live host Sam D'Arc.
Between the lines: Mobile service still accounts for 15-17% of all repairs under Sabino’s watch, a stat holding steady since he last appeared on the show in February. Not so easy to maintain, he pointed out.
His team sources mobile appointments from multiple channels:
That includes first service appointments on new vehicles.
Open recall identification across other OEMs.
Used car inventories within a 20-mile radius.
Fleet accounts with rental car companies, municipalities, police departments, and utility companies.
Pickup and delivery for repairs that aren't mobile-friendly: Dealership folks pick up the vehicle, bring it in, fix it, and take it back to the customer’s home.
It helps, too, that once a customer experiences mobile service for the first time, Sabino says the comeback ratio exceeds 90%.
"The customers absolutely love having the service brought to them on their terms at their location," Sabino said.
Jim Sabino
All American Ford
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Nuts and bolts: About 69% of all recalls can be completed in a mobile service truck, according to Sabino.
And while mobile allows them to capture that “low-hanging fruit,” such as oil changes and recall work, he did note that Ford and other manufacturers are leaning harder into software-based fixes that require no dealer facilitation, including OTA updates.
The group also upgraded its internet bandwidth after reprogramming downloads, which were slowing technicians down during diagnostic work.
Looking ahead: Sabino said consistency rules, whether it's in mobile service, video MPI, or retention. The group’s MPI send rate, by the way, is now in the low 90s across all technicians and all vehicles.
"Consistency always wins," Sabino said. "Delivering the same high level of service, of convenience, bringing the service to your customers wins every time."
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