All dealerships must focus on loyalty in order to be successful. There are three main types of loyalty that ensure overall dealer loyalty, but some are more important than others. In order to maximize your success as a dealership, you should prioritize ensuring loyalty in the following order.

Priority One: Dealer Loyalty

Dealership loyalty is built through several important factors, a large part of which is customer service. A platitude is that the customer is always right, and dealership loyalty can be built by understanding and communicating with customers, as well as rewarding repeat customers. Customer retention is a key part of ensuring dealership loyalty and having a larger base of loyal customers ensures referrals and further growth of your dealership.

Priority Two: Salesperson Loyalty

Loyal salespeople can greatly increase dealership loyalty. Providing helpful training, a company philosophy, and a friendly work environment can increase the length of employment and reduce turnover. Customers can be more loyal to an individual salesperson than the dealership, which is why salesperson loyalty is key. Building relationships will ensure that fewer customers will be lost because they’re loyal only to a particular employee.

Priority Three: Brand Loyalty

Many dealerships rely on brand loyalty in order to build loyalty, and this is a mistake because dealerships sell many different brands, as well as selling both used and new cars. Brands advertise with a high focus on brand loyalty, as well as encouraging customers to switch from a different brand to their brand, and dealers should not be particularly focused on ensuring brand loyalty in their customers. In fact, it’s pretty hard to retain: a recent ADP study showed that only 20 percent of shoppers purchased the brand they began research hoping to buy.

In order to improve your dealership’s loyalty, we encourage you to seek a consultation with Better Car People to create a dealer loyalty rewards program.