The best ideas often don’t come from within the four walls of a dealership, as Greg Johnson recently recounted.
During his son’s lacrosse practice, his friend’s wife told him about her trip to a quick lube that day, where she said she happily paid $139 to get the service done in just nine minutes.
“Ding, the radar’s going off. Like, we got to do something here,” Johnson said.
Driving the news: In a return visit to Daily Dealer Live, the Mohawk Honda General Manager shared with host Sam D’Arc how that conversation inspired his new Lightning Lane.
He went to his team for suggestions on how they could compete with the quick lube’s nine-minute service, and the solution was akin to the Disney FastPass, where guests pay to get on a ride and avoid long lines.
It’s called the Mohawk Lightning Lane.
How it works: There are up to four slots per hour, and customers can pay an extra $39 to move to the front of the line.
The $89 oil change is now $129.
Customers are guaranteed to be in or out in 25 minutes, or the oil change is free.
“Twenty-five minutes, you’re to the front of the line,” Johnson said. “You’re in and out because I don’t want to lose the customer.”
Most customers sign up ahead of time unless there’s availability, and as soon as they give permission on the repair order, the clock starts on the 25-minute guarantee.
Meeting customer desires: Johnson shared that in surveys, customers have stated they want to be taken care of transparently, fairly, and efficiently.
“If we can check all those boxes with a Lightning Lane oil change, that’s just one way we’re retaining more customers to the store here,” Johnson said.
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The Lightning Lane customers are seated in a separate waiting area so there’s no confusion with other customers about the order of service.
Adding techs: There has been discussion about adding more techs and charging all customers the Lightning Lane amount to guarantee a 25-minute oil change for everyone.
Johnson said staffing is based on how many repair orders they want to process through express per day, per half hour.
“Once an employee is here, we have a very well-laid-out career path for every department,” Johnson said. “I think 17 of our people in the main shop technicians have come out of express, and 10 of those are master techs, with the rest of them in the works. You’ve got to build your own bench internally.”
Johnson personally visits the shop multiple times a day to check in with techs to see what they need.
Returning to a human touch: Johnson noted the dealership tried to replace their BDC with multiple AI tools for service appointments.
But the customers told him in a survey, “Greg, this is terrible.”
He staffed the BDC department to make sure a person is on every single call and provides weekly training.
“I can’t tell you how much that has increased our CSE and customers coming in commenting about, ‘Greg, this is so much easier to do business this way by talking to a live human than trying to get through an AI system.’”
Bottom line: Johnson notes that dealers know all the stats about a customer who stays with you in service and comes back to buy a car versus someone who defects. He points out the Lightning Lane is a way to build retention, along with listening to customers.
“I think we all need to talk more aggressively about the retention part,” he said.
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