Superior customer service and dynamic leadership helps Brimell Toyota stand out in a crowded neighbourhood
Dealer Principal Mark Bozian
The last thing dealer principal Mark Bozian wants to see is an unhappy customer storm out of his dealership. “One customer lost is one too many,” is the philosophy of Bozian, the CEO of Brimell Toyota, a Scarborough, Ont.-based dealership.
“My hope is to wrap my arms around every customer as tightly as I can,” he says. “We are trying to plug every hole that we can and it’s ongoing.” One initiative Brimell put in place recently is a VIP one-on-one service when a new owner takes delivery of their vehicle, to help educate them about the vehicle’s features and technologies. These deliveries can happen at your home, office or at the dealership.
Mohammad (Shah) Shahzad uses props and teaching aids to connect with customers. He uses soup cans to illustrate the difference between OEM and aftermarket parts.
Bozian’s customer-first approach manifests itself throughout his operation from sales to service. “I never let anyone get too complacent,” he says. “Every day we are out of business, technically, until someone makes a conscious decision to drive in here instead of somewhere else and spend their money. If they stop driving in here, we are done,” he says. “We are finished.”
Bozian’s vision is best exemplified by the full-time customer service specialist he brought on board to coordinate customer relations. The results have been nothing short of spectacular.
Brimell Toyota, Scarborough, Ont.
A true people person
When you first meet Mohammad Shahzad, Brimell Toyota’s manager of customer management operations, you can’t help but notice his broad smile and hear the sincerity in his voice. This is someone who clearly cares about people.
Shahzad, S.A.E., D.M,P, or Shah as he prefers to be called, is a man on a mission to change the way customers interact with their dealerships. He works tirelessly to solve customer problems and says his goal is to turn “complaints into compliments.” He developed a series of powerful tools and tactics that drive customer satisfaction, loyalty and repeat business to new heights — and he measures the impact of his approach on the dealership’s bottom line.
Shahzad is much more than a guy with a big heart who listens to customers. There’s a disciplined science behind his approach. Whether the problem stems from sales, the F&I office or in parts and service, customer complaints are steered to his office at the front of the dealership where his door is always open.
Enemies into allies
From the moment they are in his care, he sets out to convert their experience into a positive one, and measures the direct impact of the outcome using a series of detailed metrics and computer software to trace the long-term impact of resolving the customer’s dispute satisfactorily.
An organization driven by metrics, Bozian says he wants to be able to track everything. “I wanted to be able to break it right down to what it costs us to resolve a customer complaint and what was the upside when we did,” says Bozian. “Some of them are not solvable. But our success rate is incredibly high.” In 2010, (final 2011 figures were not yet available during our interview) Shahzad’s records showed that the dealership gained more than $500,000 in repeat business (from sales, service, accessories, F&I, etc.) from satisfied customers, or their referrals, after his department was able to solve a customer concern. The goal of his department is quite simply to gain customers for life.
How does he do it?
Shahzad says he believes that open, honest two-way communication is the key to convert an enemy into an ally.
First of all, Shahzad knows his stuff. He has all the technical knowledge and training to explain any vehicle-related issue to a customer. But it’s his approach to listening to customers, assessing the best way to communicate with them and delivering reassurances without being patronizing that is the secret ingredient.
“I truly believe the customer is the foundation of success in our business,” says Shahzad. “The customer is the one who is signing our paycheque. Every customer is very important, not just in dollar value, but in lifetime value.”
The first thing he does when confronted with a customer complaint, he says, is acknowledge it. “Welcome the customer complaint with genuine interest,” he says. The goal is to regain trust, maintain long-term customer retention, and this then results in additional revenues for the dealership. “I do not throw money at customers to satisfy their needs,” says Shahzad. “I understand their problem, take it from there and find the root cause and resolve it in a timely manner.”
Where is that word?
Shahzad has several approaches for “extremely difficult” customers. He says when confronted with profanity by angry customers, he sometimes will turn to the dictionary and start to search for the profane word and report he didn’t find it there, therefore there’s no need to use it in English. It’s just one of the many tools he uses to deescalate the tension when customers get hot tempered.
He is always respectful, extremely polite and sympathetic in his customer interactions. He says 60 per cent of all complaints are resolved on the day they are registered.
You can ask Shahzad for any statistic related to customer service and he has it at his fingertips. What is the percentage breakdown of where complaints are coming from by department?
What is the average response time to resolve a complaint? What spending did the customer continue to do with the dealership after their complaint was solved? What is the root cause of the complaint? “You can’t manage until you measure,” he says.
A toolkit for trouble
For every customer that presents himself or herself to him with a problem or complaint, he has a tool or technique to deal with it. He uses props, diagrams, training books and showmanship to help reach his customers. Meeting in his office, he’s in a suit and tie, but puts on a white shop coat, complete with tools and measurement devices, if he’s taking a customer to the shop to explore a service issue.
Another unique approach is his ability to break down the technology involved with a particular vehicle maintenance or service into language people can easily relate to. When talking about snow tires for example, he’ll talk about winter tires as the “snow shoes” for the vehicle. He refers to rust as “skin cancer for your vehicle,” and a windshield as “your car’s safety glasses.” To illustrate the importance of a wheel alignment, he’ll ask a customer to untie one shoelace and then try to walk in a straight line without wobbling.
Positive reaction
Bozian says he gets lots of positive feedback about Shahzad’s approach with his customers. “If a person is visual, he’ll deal with it visually. If they need to be shown, he can take them for a test drive,” says Bozian. Many of the problems get rooted back to communication, he says.
Shahzad pursued Bozian for a couple of years to join his dealership, but Bozian says his company wasn’t ready. “We had so many issues we had to fix as a company there was no way I could get to that,” he says. While he used to get “letter after letter after letter” from angry customers, now Bozian says he might get one a month — which is still enough to make him unhappy.
Bozian says his dealership’s approach to customer service now extends deeply beyond the walls of the dealership with community service and outreach programs to schools, charities and even efforts to recruit young people to the industry.
Having one customer service trouble shooter at his dealership isn’t enough. Bozian says he wants his whole operation to be trained to solve issues before they reach that level. “If it reaches me, I’ll solve it for you. You don’t want that.”
Bozian says it’s also vital to take the time to thank customers for their business. He tells them: “Thanks for choosing us, we know you have choice.” Being in a densely populated urban area like Scarborough, Ont., Bozian says there are competitive dealerships within a short drive in any direction, and there are aftermarket competitors everywhere.
Bozian has some strong opinions about the auto retail industry, and works hard to combat some of the negative impressions that consumers have about the people who work at car dealerships.
“Perception is a big word around here,” says Bozian. “I preach it all the time. We are fighting a perception every day.”
He says every time he reads a negative story about a dealer in the media, it makes him irate.
“It sets us all back a century. Especially in the aftermarket, they are dining out on that stuff.”
