Feeling like they were missing some opportunities, Wes Lloyd and Spencer Nicholson are leading Stuckey Auto’s fixed ops through a major change in their technology stack.
Lloyd, the service director, and Spencer Nicholson, the fixed ops director, are guiding the seven-store group in Pennsylvania through implementing a new DMS and CRM, while also focusing on strong hiring and customer retention.
Driving the news: In an interview with host Sam D’Arc on Daily Dealer Live, Nicholson explained the need to switch DMS and CRM providers to eliminate inefficiencies from being “stuck” with their communications in the service drive.
After researching options for two years and the executive team meeting with Tekion at NADA, the group elected to change its CRM and DMS after 13 years.
First impressions: Stuckey Automotive is 30 days into the changeover, with the switch on the new system getting “flipped” in another 30 days.
They are already working on one of their first initiatives of going paperless within the Tekion system.
Lloyd said they quickly realized the benefits, “dialing in things tighter and cleaning up processes,” which is lifting the team around the change to help with scheduling friction.
“We all know some of the struggles we run into on a daily basis whenever you’re working in a couple of different systems, and they don’t necessarily talk to each other the way that you want them to,” Lloyd explained. “That becomes the focus of the team really rallying right there… the excitement of I can’t wait till I don’t have to deal with this anymore.”
Getting people in the right seats: The rallying behind the change highlights an area that Nicholson said they’ve specifically focused on, eliminating negative attitudes.
Nicholson explained that their core values of serving passionately, being positively driven, being exceptional, taking extreme ownership, and being dynamic are reinforced in every interview and at every meeting.
And in hiring, they’ve leaned toward applicants matching their attitude rather than experience.
Focus on maintenance: Like many dealerships, Stuckey Automotive is seeing an increase in higher revenue-producing repair work over maintenance work, and Lloyd said they are working to turn that around.
They want to be the best at diagnosing and repairing vehicles to win back the loyalty of customers for the routine maintenance work.
Lloyd said the struggle is that customers have a misconception that the dealership is the most expensive option and not as convenient as other shops.
“We can do the same quality service in a similar time frame for less expensive,” Lloyd said.
Retaining customers: During the live segment, it was shared that Stuckey Automotive sells 800 to 900 cars per month.
With that, Nicholson reiterated that they need to make sure those customers come back to the service department.
Ford has launched a big initiative, “Dare to Compare,” which Stuckey Auto is also making a priority to show customers that they are competitive with other shops in price, convenience, and unmatched on quality.
“In our area, none of those big box stores are beating us on price, at least on maintenance items,” Nicholson said.
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Getting aligned: The group also mentioned bringing customers back for maintenance, alignments, tire rotations, and balancing, all key focus areas.
Nicholson even suggested each store have a dedicated alignment tech, with one manager who made that change with their group “crushing it.”
Looking ahead: Lloyd points out that overall success will be measured by the employees' comfort level with the new system and if they see a “climb” tied to revenue and happier customers.
Nicholson added, “We’re doing this to be more efficient. Since COVID, we’ve had that creep you know; we need to hire a few more people to make some other people comfortable. And again, it’s going to make us more efficient and potentially not have to add those comfort positions.”
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