Prestige Motors Mercedes-Benz
Save Time, Reduce Costs and Improve Customer Satisfaction
Prestige Motors Mercedes-Benz in Paramus, NJ operates a busy service department thanks to extended hours, more than 70 technicians, and 214 Mercedes-Benz loaner vehicles that are available for their customers. For Service Manager Frank Nolan, the secret to keeping his department running efficiently and his customers satisfied is maintaining visibility and control into his department — and that includes his loaner fleet. For the past three years, TSD LOANER Management Software has enabled Prestige Motors to reduce its cost and length of loan while enhancing customer satisfaction.
With TSD LOANER, Prestige Motors has been able to improve its customer service by cutting down on lines and wait time in a busy service department.
The system pulls the customer’s information from the dealership DMS or previous visit. The loaner car administrator at the dealership can easily track the status of vehicles, such as those in for repair, within TSD LOANER to ensure that customers are assigned an appropriate vehicle quickly. Today, Prestige can send its clients away in a loaner in just a few minutes with a professionally printed loaner agreement.
“When Prestige first began using TSD LOANER about three years ago, we saw a two-day reduction in length of loan, achieved simply by using TSD LOANER’s reporting tools to facilitate ways our staff can communicate with customers about their vehicles,” says Frank. Like many service managers, Frank faces the challenge of ensuring that his loaner vehicles and third-party rentals are returned in a timely fashion, minimizing his length of loan. Often, customers keep loaner vehicles longer than necessary, affecting his operations and bottom line.
With the reporting features available in TSD LOANER, Frank is able to quickly review overdue loaner vehicles as they relate to Repair Orders, view who has written up the repair, and contact the customer to get the loaner vehicle back, allowing the service department at Prestige Motors to be proactive instead of waiting for customers to return cars. Reports also show which service advisor wrote up the customer, allowing Frank and his loaner manager to quickly investigate why certain repairs are running over their estimated times or assign responsibility to staff for overdue loaner vehicles.
“TSD LOANER allows us to check for errors, and to see exactly who did what so we can catch any issues,” says Frank. “It controls our expenses and allows us to keep customers happy.”
On occasion, Prestige Motors customers are placed in third-party rentals while their loaner vehicles are in for repair. While tracking in-house loaners on TSD LOANER has been a valuable way of keeping loaner fleet costs down and increasing efficiency for Prestige Motors, they have also recognized tremendous value in the third-party rental tracking features that the system offers.
“Before TSD LOANER, we were relying on a paper contract from the rental company, sometimes handwritten, that would often get lost in stacks of other paper,” says Frank. “We’d lose the ability to keep tabs on the car and how long the vehicle had been out on loan. Without third-party rentals entered into TSD, they were a nightmare to manage. Now, with TSD LOANER, we can track our third-party rental agreements with a click of a button, helping to reduce our third-party expenses.”
By monitoring his outside rentals as closely as his loaner vehicles, Frank was able to drastically cut his monthly outside rental costs, from $30,000 to $13,000 a month.
“Any dealership with a loaner fleet, whether they’re big or small, needs to get TSD LOANER,” says Frank. “It helps with labor, time, customer satisfaction, and dollars and cents.”
Prestige Motors Mercedes-Benz
Location: Paramus, NJ
Loaner Fleet: 214 vehicles
Length of Loan Savings: 2 days
Outside Rental Savings: $17,000 per month (57%)
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800-743-1200 • sales@tsd-inc.com