Better customer service coming in clear

Borrowing a tool from high-end hotels, Street Toyota employees wear radios with discreet lapel microphones to speed communication and charm customers at the 12-acre dealership in Amarillo, Texas.

Almost all of Street Toyota's 150 workers sport four-channel radios, a belt-mounted battery pack, loose-fitting earpiece and lapel mic with a simple push-button control.

Rapid communication is a natural extension of Street's reliance on friendly service to distinguish the store, says General Manager Mike Good.

"Anybody greeting customers can ask who they're looking for, then touch their lapel and say, 'Shannon McElroy, Mr. and Mrs. Smith are here to pick up their new car,'" Good said. "Customers love it. It makes them feel special."

Street Toyota introduced radios to the service department in January, followed by the parts department in May and sales in June, linking everybody who interacts with customers.

"Everybody loves it," he said. "I've never introduced new tech without somebody complaining, but not one person objected to this."

The radios are so new at Street Toyota that it's hard to measure their value yet, but Good sees satisfied customers.

"Our [Toyota-measured] service customer satisfaction has gone from 88.1 in 2014 to 91.5 so far this year, mostly from better communication," he said.

Good cites improved staff efficiency and the potential to upsell service and keep pros-pects engaged.

Dealer and owner Joe Street already is convinced. "This is the best move we've made in years," he said.

There's a less formal measure of usefulness: the footstep counter on Jason Reed's Fitbit. Now service manager, Reed was service drive manager when the radios debuted.

"Before, his footstep count topped 20,000 a day," Cook said. "That dropped to less than 10,000 once he could reach everybody in service from where he stood."

David Walker, Street Toyota's lead trainer and radio wrangler, said employees like instant department access, but the radios shine in unexpected events.

"If a parked car is blocking in my customers, I'm not running around a 58,000-square-foot building asking who has the brown station wagon," he said. "I hit my mic and boom, it's done."

Where did the idea come from?

At a mid-2014 Toyota 20 group meeting, Matt Gile of Motorcars Toyota in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, mentioned using one-channel radios for a few of his service staff. Cook related that to luxury hotel employees using lapel-mounted radios to help customers.

"What don't you see at Motel 6 but do at the Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons?" he asks. "Efficient communication between all the people who want to help you."

Years ago, Street Toyota made luxury resort-style concierges part of its service-oriented philosophy.

Most days, three concierges work the front door, service entrance and a parking lot patrol in a golf cart: greeting, handing out water and snacks and answering questions. Now, concierges wear radios.

A high-volume store in Amarillo, population 196,000, needs distinctiveness to draw customers not just from Texas, but also from Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas.

Street Toyota's managers believe improved service has helped boost sales to 400 new and used monthly from 50 a month in 2003.

Cook and Walker settled on four-channel Motorola CLP radios, with base units centrally charged. Each employee keeps a personal attachable lapel mic and earpiece. The earpiece, suspended a half-inch from the ear canal on a simple frame, swivels to fit either side of the head.

Walker custom-tunes frequencies so each employee is linked by department: green for service, yellow for parts and blue for sales. Red is set aside for Cook and six department heads.

Most uses were anticipated, whether it's General Sales Manager Cory Dupriest seeking one of his 40 sales associates, the receptionist linking a customer to a specific associate, or Service Manager Reed asking shop foreman Pedro Hernandez about the status of a vehicle.

But employees quickly found other uses, such as a service writer instantly getting the exact price and stock status of an upsell part.

"The radios enhance customers' experience because they wait less," Cook said. "It saves steps and time."