How Premier Kia has put aftersales at the front and centre of its approach

The coming years will put increased pressure on retailers’ aftersales income. The reduced new registrations in the last couple of years thanks to the pandemic, and the forthcoming rise in electric vehicles will combine to put pressure on the sector. Those who are in a good place now will be in an even stronger one as times get harder.

Premier Kia in Rochdale looks set to face forthcoming challenges firmly on the front foot. The retailer’s Rochdale site came out top in Kia’s After Sales Excellence Award for 2021, retaining the title it first picked up the previous year. As further proof that this was no one-off success, the group’s nearby sister site, at Dukinfield, also finished in the top 10 in the award.

Lockdown inspired

Premier director Ben Bird is clear that the challenge of the 2020 lockdown provided an opportunity for the company to reset and start a process with the aim of moving from good to great.

“We started out by interviewing every person that came back from the lockdowns or from furlough,” he says.

One topic came up more than any other in those interviews, he says. “Everybody had a discussion on the family life balance. Certainly within the automotive sector you’re pretty much working wall to wall deadlines and rolling through without the opportunity to take a breath and maybe just factor through what was going wrong, and why it’s going wrong.”

The biggest issue, he says, was the company was heavily focused on customers. “We found that we weren’t focusing enough on our staff. I think it was too heavily weighted on customer satisfaction as opposed to staff satisfaction along with it. Now it is a more even split.”

Part of this was making a major change to the working week of the aftersales department. Premier followed what it felt was the industry norm by having the aftersales team work six days a week and coming in on a Saturday morning.

The advisors on the desk reported that a lot of the customer interactions on a Saturday were people who couldn’t get in during the Monday to Friday 9-5 time period coming in to collect a courtesy car or similar. As a result, the team has opted to switch to remaining open later two evenings a week instead, closing at 7pm on Tuesday and Thursday instead.

“Without having a Monday to Friday late evening offering [customers] were having to come in on a Saturday because that was the only opportunity they could get in which ultimately is impacting what they should be doing on a weekend. The last thing they want to be doing is going to get the car maintained when they should be spending time with family.”

The sales department remains open, and all departments have a broad knowledge of what should be happening so are able to help should someone need to drop off or collect a car at the weekend.

The shift started in quarter three 2020 following the back-to-work interviews in May and June 2020. He says the feedback so far has been fantastic, from both staff and customers.

Efficiency increase

The one KPI that Premier says it wants to excel at is overall workshop efficiency.

“Hours bought, hours sold – that is the only one we track,” says Ben. “Prior to the lockdown the four sites the varying performance on the four sites we have ranged from 60% to 80%. Since the return to work in 2020 we have not dropped below 100%.”

This has come about as a result of a shift of focus from the top-level management. Where previously the end-of-day conversation would be “How many cars were sold today?” this has shifted so that workshop hours is now front and centre in the company’s thinking.

Importance of fleet

Some of these sold hours have come about thanks to a focus on fleet customers. Rather than going after those who are replacing their vehicles, though, Ben says that the approach has been to lead with aftersales and how the team can help with a company’s maintenance.

“We’ve really made inroads into adopting quite a bit of fleet maintenance with the view to hopefully selling them a Kia down the line,” he says.

This has been across a variety of manufacturers, with Premier looking after vehicles from the likes of Ford, Nissan and Mitsubishi with cars generally aged two to four years old.

When it comes to bringing these smaller fleets of 10 and below in, the site has a business specialist that is tasked with reaching out to local companies, with the convenience of collection and delivery at the forefront along with price transparency. Another key element is communication within the teams, though.

“A lot of it’s come from where a customer may have come in on a retail point of view to purchase – everybody works for somebody. Without being too intrusive, is asking the sales advisors to be a bit more inquisitive about where somebody works.”

Premier has also flipped its local marketing so that it doesn’t focus on sales but centres on aftersales instead. The reasoning being that by just going for the high-ticket item of a car they have diluted who they are able to speak to. Putting aftersales front and centre has brought rewards in a lucrative area of the business, but it could also pay stronger dividends down the road, too.

Preparing for the EV challenge

The team at Premier Kia is already well under way when it comes to preparing the technicians and wider aftersales department for the rise in electric vehicles arriving for services and general work.

The company started upskilling the wider team before Covid, aided by its work with the Mitsubishi plug-in hybrid technology. This vehicle started the process of adapting peoples’ mindsets, says director Ben Bird.

“As we as we stand today, 70% of our workforce is EV trained with the others all booked into to have that completed,” he says. He expects that the full team will be able to work on electric vehicles from mid 2023 at the latest.

However, he maintains that every employee will be a hybrid worker, focusing on both EV and ICE for the foreseeable future.

When it comes to keeping earnings going with more EVs coming in, he says that Kia’s approach has been helpful. Despite the vehicles being on a two-year, 20,000-mile service interval, the brand has factored in a routine whereby the vehicle comes in once every 12 months to keep the conversation going. This ‘check service’ means that returning customers will be used to coming back in regularly, he says.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Location: Molesworth Street, Rochdale

Established in: 2008, although Premiere has had a Kia franchise in Dukinfield since 1999

Staff numbers: 26 in Rochdale, 65 overall

Total parts purchases in 2021: £329k (@215k in 2019)

Accessory spend per retail unit sold: 2021 – £334 (£147 in 2019)

Return on sale: 3.5%