Jeff Bellinger is General Manager for Brandfon Honda, a sales and service volume leader in its district. Located in Branford, CT near New Haven, the dealership sells 1,560 new and used vehicles a year. Brandfon Honda operates 16 service bays and has eight service writers. To improve its fixed operations performance, the dealership installed Xtime hosted service CRM (customer relationship management) systems two years ago and recently provided service advisors Xtime ServiceTab™ mobile tablets.
The mobile ServiceTab lets advisors greet customers right at their vehicles in the service drive, where conditions are more conducive to face-to-face interaction that builds stronger relationships and trust. By using this intuitive tablet interface, a service advisor can check customers in as they drive up, digitally record walk-around inspection results in real-time and discuss service recommendations without ever leaving the customer or vehicle.
Our use of Xtime, and especially ServiceTab, has helped increase our labor hours per RO at least 35%.
“This technology adds credibility to what an advisor is recommending,” Bellinger noted, “and everything is captured electronically – including the customer’s signature to get the repair order started so customers are on their way a good five minutes faster.
Xtime ServiceTab helps advisors do more thorough vehicle walkarounds and identify potential upsell opportunities. Improved shop utilization through Xtime’s ServiceCRM™ product suite and its certified integrations with a dealer’s DMS ensures all appointments are 100% confirmed. Bellinger said Xtime’s online scheduling does more than help him streamline workflow. He shared that consumers in control of scheduling their own appointment hours often take those late afternoon or evening appointments that often get overlooked when some employees book them. “With online scheduling we take appointments right up until closing and then stay late to finish the work if necessary,” he said. This table provides a snapshot of Xtime’s performance at Brandfon Honda:
Appointments Booked via Xtime |
Show Rate |
Appointment Repair Order Dollars |
Per RO Value |
95.2.8% |
84% |
$146,964 |
$268 |
Bellinger said Xtime’s involvement with the dealership has meant significant performance changes. “In our district, we’re one of the only dealerships to have had significant RO count increases during the last two years – and we are also one of the only ones having month-over-month increases this year compared to last. I attribute a lot of that growth to Xtime,” he said.