When is the time to fix the reconditioning process with your dealership?

• When purchases and trades took too long
• When accountability is weak?
• When frequent management attention is needed?

If any or all of the above impediments are consuming resources that should be otherwise used for managing customers or creating new sales, now may be the perfect time to overhaul your recon center.

You can take advantage of a new and proven technology which eliminates the need to spin your wheels on any recon obstacles. This new technology fixes recon operations with a real-time workflow that supports current processes, but scales and adapts to keep up with changing business needs and points out where bottlenecks exist. It can be setup in a
few hours with minimal effort. The monthly cost is a fraction of the resulting and verifiable increased turns. And best of all, it puts the
used car manager and fixed operations/service manager on the same page when it comes to today’s priorities.

By using a real-time workflow, dealerships like DePaula Chevrolet (Albany, New York), Everett Chevrolet (Hickory, North Carolina) and Bob Brown Chevrolet (Des Moines, Iowa) all have accelerated their inventory turns and, in April 2013, captured three of the top six Certified Chevy Dealer awards nationwide. These dealers consistently deliver industry-leading results because, when it is about reconditioning, they have the right tool for the job.

Surprisingly, many dealerships are still seeking recon accountability and control and are short sighted when it comes to this topic. Old habits die hard, and people find it difficult to change their accustomed behavior. Consequently, the use of an unreliable, shared spreadsheet and manually maintained lifecycle reporting perpetuates a level of frustration and finger pointing.

It is understandable that those overseeing the recon process resist yet another run at fixing recon. Sticking with this is akin to holding onto “gut felt” decisions for buying, pricing and keeping the wrong cars while ignoring the market data. That is, until it became obvious that this “gut feeling” would keep you at six turns, while applying the market data could take you to 12 or 14.

A real-time workflow approach organizes the work and keeps everything transparent. Dealerships adopting this technology have unlocked days being lost in recon, cut the average recon time in half — providing more selling days — and added one to three more inventory turns. e UCM is put in the driver’s seat with cost control and timing. By using “Time to Market” (TTM) metrics, recon can be held to a monthly and weekly target just like sales, drastically reducing the time general management needs to be involved. With TTM, you have complete transparency so that each recon function, such as mechanical, body and detail, now have expected average completion times to be measured against.

If you are on a 50- or 60-day turn policy, you know the value of extra selling days. At the end of the month, you know how many used cars you sold and what the average gross was. You know how much you made in service and parts. But do you know how well you did in recon? With a real-time workflow system you, too, will have the hard data to know exactly where you stand.

Dennis McGinn is the founder and CEO of Rapid Recon. He can be contacted at 866.268.3582, or by e-mail at dmcginn@autosuccessonline.com.