Concierge service delivers for customers and dealers

A new business offers dealerships an Uber-like transport option for their service and loaner vehicles.

David Zwick, founder of RedCap Automotive Technology, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., company, has signed about 50 retailers as his first customers for a concierge business he launched a couple of years ago.

The savings are big, said Zwick. Dealers don't have to hire special porters, loaner cars are returned within hours rather than days, service revenues increase more than 20 percent, and users have found their customer-satisfaction scores rise, he said.

RedCap also is running six pilots with unnamed automakers "that will likely bring this to the forefront and take us to several thousand stores in 2016," Zwick said. He wouldn't name the automakers but said they are luxury and domestic brands looking to boost their customer service.

Here's how it works. 

RedCap recruits and trains local drivers, screens their motor vehicle and criminal records and administers drug tests. 

When a customer calls to schedule service, the dealership determines which loaner will be delivered to him or her, said Zwick. That's usually based on what the customer's vehicle is and the length of ownership. An order is generated to RedCap. A driver is assigned the job via phone app, and if he or she accepts, the service writer is emailed a picture of the driver. 

"There is a complete visibility to dealers," eliminating the problem of a dealership wondering where a porter on a run with a loaner vehicle has been for half a day, said Zwick. 

RedCap's phone app monitors how many jobs a driver accepts, whether the driver was on time, how long the job took, if the driver was speeding and how the customer rated the experience. 

RedCap employees usually drive to supplement their income, Zwick said. Often, they're car enthusiasts in their late 40s or early 50s, he said. "They are driving safely. We get an alert if they do not take a direct route or drive the car too fast." 

The dealership pays a one-time cost of $100 per candidate who goes on its list of drivers. The drivers get paid about $12 per trip by the dealer. Zwick said he doesn't recommend it, but some dealerships charge the customer $20 to $25 for the service. 

Alternatively, dealerships can include the pickup and delivery service as part of a paid concierge package, perhaps bundled with other finance and insurance products. 

Zwick said he's had discussions with a few carmakers "that are looking at a way to bake this into the price of the car, and they may be able to market their car as coming with this concierge-type of service." 

Some dealers have been leery of the service, afraid that sales and service revenues will decline if customers don't come to the store. 

Others argue they don't want to invest in more loaners because they have built fancy waiting rooms with Wi-Fi and other amenities, Zwick said. 

He counters: "Customers do not want to be there." 

Zwick said he has solid data from three manufacturers that customers who don't come in spend 20 to 35 percent more on service. "If you're sitting in a waiting room for 45 minutes and the service adviser comes out and says you need new brakes and it will take another hour, you will say, 'I'll do it next time.'" 

Customers are more likely to approve extra work over the telephone, he said. "The attitude is, my car is already there, I might as well go ahead and do it." 

Zwick said RedCap also helps dealers better control their loaner fleets. "When a customer takes a loaner, it is out for about 3.2 days before they bring it back," he said, when the average service appointment takes just two to three hours. With RedCap, "The dealer has the ability to deliver when the car is serviced instead of saying, 'Come back and get the car.'" 

With a faster turnaround, a dealer could slash a loaner fleet in half or make the vehicles available to twice as many customers, Zwick said. 

Larry Zinn, general manager of Warren Henry Automotive Group in Miami, uses RedCap for his Jaguar, Land Rover, Infiniti and Lamborghini franchises. Zinn said it's "a lot cheaper" than hiring his own drivers but declined to give details. 

"We used to have drivers to do pickups, and we could not staff enough people to do that. I had two per store. We couldn't make it work or see enough people," he said. 

In addition, said Zinn, "It would take us more than a day to get a loaner back. Now, it is about 2.5 hours from the time a repair order is closed." 

Data from the J.D. Power 2015 U.S. Customer Service Index Study show a 41-point increase when the dealer delivers the vehicle to a customer's home or worksite vs. the traditional method whereby the customer picks up the vehicle. 

Zinn said his dealerships get higher customer satisfaction ratings, "and our customer pay is higher when the customer does not have to come into the dealership." 

Said Zinn: "When they are in the comfort of their home or office, it is easier to say yes rather than when they are sitting in front of a service adviser that may be pressuring them."