When business slowed down in January 2025, Hicks Layton, a third-generation finance and sales manager at Hicks Leyton Auto Group, called a management meeting to brainstorm ways to find more deals from service.
In that meeting, he said the group wanted real results from farming the service lane, so they turned to sales staff first.
What they’re saying: “We started off by getting access for all our sales managers, for our service lane management software,” Layton told Daily Dealer Live host Sam D’Arc. “And they were tasked with identifying vehicles that we thought would be potential trade-ins, particularly vehicles that we could certify.”
How it works: Layton did a lot of the appraising himself early on, but now a dedicated employee monitors the service lane daily, scanning DealerLogix for incoming vehicles and cross-referencing against criteria set by the management team.
Before any outreach goes out, that employee pulls CRM history to review what was said on previous visits and what the prior offer looked like, helping the team avoid over-contacting repeat customers.
From there, sales managers handle the actual appraisals, with ACV Max generating the offer.
The messaging that follows is customized to the customer's situation, whether it's a warranty expiring, mileage approaching 100k, equity position, or payments remaining.
Customers also receive video leads, which Layton checks personally to confirm they've been sent, viewed, and followed up on.
Nuts and bolts: Layton zeroes in on 2020–24 vehicles with low miles because they need minimal recon and can be certified quickly.
Older, higher-mileage cars still get a look, just without the personalized follow-up.
Worth noting: It wasn’t perfect at first. For example, when the efforts kicked off, they printed “checks” for the customers with their offer, but it didn’t stick.
As Layton explained, it created two problems: customers didn't know what to do with them, and shoppers were handed a number to take across the street.
OUTSMART THE CAR MARKET IN 5 MINUTES A WEEK
Get insights trusted by 55,000+ car dealers. Free, fast, and built for automotive leaders.
Once the process clicked: The group rolled the process out from its flagship Corpus Christi Nissan store to all five locations (all in or near that Texas city), after early results proved repeatable.
The group now appraises 750 to 1,000 service customers a month across the five stores.
Monthly car sales out of the service lane have increased from 5 to 7 to 15 to 20.
And about 75 to 80% of eligible vehicles, which, as Layton explained, are filtered by year and mileage, are now getting appraised.
Bottom line: Layton said the process is still largely manual. He also acknowledged that there are likely automation and AI tools that could help with the messaging and identification workflow.
But right now, the fundamentals are already working without them.
A quick word from our partner
Meet LotGPT, your AI Inventory Strategist built exclusively for car dealers.
Fluent in your dealership, your market, and your inventory, LotGPT analyzes live inventory, real-time market supply, and shopper demand to surface risk and opportunity - VIN by VIN.
It reveals competitive insights, shopper behavior, and pricing dynamics, and even flags underperforming VDPs with merchandising recommendations to help boost conversion without cutting price.
