Greg May Honda upgrades their dealership to ERA-IGNITE and uncovers boundless benefits:
We upgraded to ERA-IGNITE within the last year and it was a great process for us. It was not a painful process at all. In fact, it was an exciting process for our employees because we went from the blue screens to having a mouse in our hand. We love Reynolds and Reynolds and what you’ve done with ERA-IGNITE. The transition from ERA to ERA-IGNITE was so simple! You have made our lives a whole lot easier.
Before ERA-IGNITE, you had to go back and forth between screens to get in and out of different sections. With ERA-IGNITE, you can open multiple screens and you have the ease of having things open. We can work multiple car deals at the same time. We can go straight into Service, Accounting, and drill down if we need to. We can look at RO’s. The simplicity of ERA-IGNITE over what Reynolds used to be has made us 100% more productive.
In the past, we were close to three hours per car deal. With ERA-IGNITE, we can have a full house with two guys on the desk working four or five deals at a time. Now we can work a deal in 60 minutes!
In the past you would pull in the driveway and see a long line of cars in the service drive. Since we started using Service Sales Kit and ERA-IGNITE, our customers are happier, and our CSI scores have gone up five points. In addition, we have grown so much that we have taken a section of our existing Service department and turned it into a quick lane. We’re not turning anybody away. We’re more efficient, which all leads to better profits, more gross, and happier customers.
The ERA-IGNITE dashboard gives me better expense control because my expenses are in front of me every day so I’m thinking about them constantly. I no longer have to wait for someone to pass out reports or month end. Everything is up-to-date which gives me a truer picture of where our gross is.
With ERA-IGNITE we are able to better meet customer expectations of time. If a customer says, ‘I’m buying this used car my General Manager can drill down into the RO in seconds, and see what was done to the car. ERA-IGNITE speeds up the process which is a winning formula for all of us.
The big question on every CSI survey is promise time and by using Service Scheduling in ERA-IGNITE we never over promise. Service Scheduling allows us to see how the shop is loaded. If we know a job is going to take longer then we tell the customer, ‘We can get you in but it might be a little bit longer.’ Customers appreciate the honesty!
Don’t get me wrong, ERA-IGNITE has made a big impact in every department, but our Service department has seen much more ease of doing business, time savings, and the ability to give customer information quicker.
Recently, we were named the number one and number two dealerships to work for in the nation by Automotive News. When people ask, ‘What makes it so fun?’ I say ‘it’s having an easy-to-use operating system like ERA-IGNITE as part of your formula.
We work 10-12 hours a day in a car dealership. It can be good or it can be bad so we appreciate partners like Reynolds and Reynolds with things like ERA-IGNITE to make long days a little shorter, a little easier and way less complicated.
