The 70% rule: Tully Williams reveals the single most important dealership KPI in 2025

At the Niello Company, customer retention drives everything across the group’s 10 luxury dealerships in California. And for fixed-ops director Tully Williams, it starts with one number: 70.

More specifically, ensuring 70% of customers return within 14 months of their last service visit.

Why it matters: Customer acquisition costs keep rising. But repeat customers provide predictable revenue, generate referrals, and create quality trade-ins that fuel used vehicle operations.

The problem: Most dealers don't even know their real retention numbers because they rely on manufacturer data instead of tracking it themselves.

As a result, Williams has abandoned nearly every traditional fixed operations metric. No more effective labor rates. No more hours per repair order. 

• “These are things from the dinosaur age,” he said.

• Instead, everyone from service managers to technicians gets paid for the same thing: hours forecasted.

By the numbers: Williams has hit his 70% retention target across Niello's dealerships while maintaining $182 per hour in gross profit, and running shops at 140-145% capacity use.

Zooming out: He's trying to end transactional thinking and give every service interaction a repeatable blueprint to generate loyalty.

And that means flipping traditional profit-thinking.

The Niello Company sacrifices short-term profits for long-term retention through four key strategies that attract customers to the bay and build relationships:

• Tires: Year-round "buy three, get one free" promotions that lose money but get customers in the bay for video inspections and trust-building. 

• Batteries: Sell replacements instead of jump-starting cars. Every interaction builds relationship equity rather than quick band-aid fixes.

• Brakes: 70-80% same-day replacement target for red-flagged issues.

• Maintenance: Keep routine services in-house instead of losing customers to quick-lube shops.

And the payoff extends beyond service.

• Williams claims his retention-focused service department sells more cars than traditional sales teams by “tenfold.”

• The logic is simple—satisfied service customers trust their advisors, who become advocates when it's time to buy their next vehicle. 

• "The service advisor is our best lead generator to buy their next car because they trust their service advisor if we do a good job," Williams explained.

Bottom line: The Niello Company has built a system that manufactures loyalty—one honest recommendation, one video inspection, one retained customer at a time. 

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