During a time like this when sales might be a little slower than normal, it's important to remind people that your service department is open and ready to help them.

Focusing on service right now is a great way to keep in touch with customers, offer them important services, and of course, provide a source of income for your auto shop or car dealership.

If you're offering exceptional customer service now, your clients will remember you when they are ready to purchase a car again later.

It's Time to Adapt

Many people are working remotely these days and therefore have a little more flexibility with their work hours and their work location. This is the perfect opportunity to reach out to past customers and remind them of services for which their car is due or just services that are a good idea.

Allow people the ability to book and pay for services online so they can do this from the safety of their own homes or from their phones there in your shop. For customers who would rather schedule and/or pay for things in-person, partitions and protective screens are a great way to have that extra layer of protection for both your clients and employees.

Quick Services

Offer deals on fairly quick services like oil changes or tire rotations where someone wouldn't be waiting around for very long. If your location has an area where you can set things up for people to comfortably wait outside while their vehicle is serviced, let them know about that. Additionally, make sure that if your indoor waiting room is open, that you have it properly equipped for customers to safely use it.

Chairs should be properly spaced out and you should use things like signs and floor decals to remind people of the current rules that you have in place. Just like everywhere else in the shop, it would also be important to have hand sanitizer readily available in the waiting room. And while many places already offer this, it's important to remember to offer free Wifi to your customers who are in the waiting room so they can work if they want to while they wait.

Another way that you can help keep distance between people in your waiting room is by making sure that you're not scheduling too many service appointments during the same time windows. For the people who are scheduling online, ask them if they will be wanting to use the waiting room so that you can properly limit the number of people in that area at one time.

Longer Services

For services that take a little longer where people might not want to be waiting around, suggest that your customers use your after-hours drop-box so they can drop off their car without having to interact face-to-face with anyone. Let your customers know that your service department employees will be wearing gloves and masks while dealing with their cars as well as using plastic coverings on various surfaces of the car's interior.

Another option you can offer to people who have some maintenance or service that will take a little longer is a loaner car. Many dealerships have offered shuttle services in the past to take people back home or to work while their car is being serviced, but some customers may not want to be in a car with people outside their family at this time. Make it clear at a glance which loaner cars have been sanitized and are ready to be loaned out by using a "Sanitized Vehicle" tag on the mirror or static cling on the window. Interior plastic coverings could also come in handy here just like they do on the customer's cars.

Detailing Services

With everyone even more concerned about cleanliness right now, offering a deal on having your car detailed could be just what someone needs. While detailing does not guarantee that every surface is sanitized, there are at least some surfaces that can be sanitized and it gives the customer a clean slate that they can then keep clean more easily.

Offering these detailing services at a discounted rate to first-responders, ride-share drivers, or other people who need to be using their cars on a daily basis right now could be a good way to get repeat business.

Moving Forward

Things will eventually be back to normal in this country but until it does, it's important for your business to be able to adapt and continue to move forward by helping your customers in other ways. In a time when everyone is under a little more stress than normal, people want to know that you're doing all you can to think of their wants and needs and how you can still offer a wonderful customer experience even if it's from a distance.