Amazon. The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftereffects. Digital retailing. The microchip shortage. These things and more persuaded the management at Florida’s Qvale Auto Group that it was time to reinvent its dealership business model.
The goal: Bring buying and servicing a car in line with the convenience that consumers are experiencing at other retail businesses.
“The level of expectations has changed across every single type of vertical, so it’s not just automotive that needed to change,” said Geno Walsh, Qvale’s dealership operations manager.
“The guy who cuts your hair needs to change the way you can set an appointment online and the ease which you can come in and out. Having instant information readily available for the consumer, I think, doesn’t matter what the vertical is,” he added.
What emerged at Qvale’s three stores is a new system of handling customers’ transactions that is built around three pillars: transparency, trust and time.
Three metrics the company uses to judge its performance have increased since the pandemic. At Qvale’s Audi store, for example, dealer brand loyalty is at 57.1 percent so far this year, 15 points higher than the national average for Audi dealers. Dealer loyalty is 42.9 percent, about 10 points higher than the national average for Audi dealers. And Audi Financial Services dealer loyalty is at 60 percent, about 24 points higher than the national average for Audi dealers.
Qvale Auto Group traces its beginnings to legendary dealer Kjell Qvale in California in the 1940s, and today sells four brands in three stores in Florida. Last year Qvale’s new- and used-vehicle sales totaled 3,424, up from 2,400 in 2021.
Drew Benson, Qvale’s process and technology manager; Paul Jensen, Qvale’s operations manager; and Christene Tornello, the company’s fixed operations director, worked on elements of the system starting about three years ago.
“We wanted to have a way of doing business that separated us from other dealers,” Walsh said.
The traditional roles of salesperson, F&I manager and service manager at Qvale’s Alfa Romeo, Audi, Maserati and Volkswagen stores have been recast to remove time-sucking layers of bureaucracy.
Qvale’s goal is for there to be a single point of contact for each customer all the way through the transaction.
Perhaps one of the most challenging issues — succinctly explaining in detail to customers how Qvale does business — has been neatly bundled into an easily promotable package called the Qvale Way.
A series of high-quality videos shows customers what they can expect when they visit a Qvale store for a new or used vehicle or for service. The roughly 90-second videos feature sales personnel, technicians and others explaining how their jobs are centered around streamlining the process, saving time and putting the customer in charge by presenting information. Each store’s website also contains tabs that show customers how sales and service works.
Each service customer gets a “digital glove box,” where technicians place detailed reports and videos. The reports include inspections with easily deciphered results and videos. The customer chooses the amount of repair work.
“You’re having a one-on-one relationship with the technician who is showing you the repairs that need to be done,” Walsh said.
When the customer signs off on the repair, parts are ordered, the car is fixed, the customer pays online and the repair ticket is closed. Qvale uses service software from a company called Update Promise.
“Everything is done digitally. Everything is done transparently, and everything is done at the customer’s pace, and hopefully, in a more time-efficient manner,” Walsh said.
The average amount billed per repair ticket has increased since the company rolled out the Qvale Way, Walsh said. He attributes that rise to the customer being able to see worn and broken components.
“If you see that you need tires, there’s a much greater take rate,” he said.
Most new- and used-car deals are done in about an hour, Walsh said. Customers don’t even have to go to a Qvale store. It can all be done online and the car can be delivered to the customer’s driveway.
It all starts with pricing. Qvale uses Velocity Intelligent Pricing, which measures such things as actual transaction prices, inventory levels and age, factory incentives, customer engagement and more to determine the advertised sale price. Senior sales personnel, for example, are empowered to accept offers without needing a sales manager’s approval.
Walsh said it’s not no-haggle pricing, and the stores won’t lose a deal if the offer is close to the advertised price. What’s more important, he said, is that the customer doesn’t get smacked with unexpected markups. “We’d rather lose with integrity than win without it,” Walsh said of Qvale’s pricing strategy.
The company measures nearly every aspect of the Qvale Way, he said.
“We’re constantly trying to get better. The only way you can do that is by collecting data. Everything we use has to be able to be digitized,” he said. From the data, refinements are made to the Qvale Way. Adding artificial intelligence capabilities is one of its next innovations.
“The consumer is the person that’s going to tell you how they want to interact, how they want to transact,” Walsh said. “Whether it is online, offline or anywhere in between, we want to meet the customer anywhere they want to be met.”