PERSONAL bests

Jay Pontiac-Buick—Dealership Service Offers

[The Business Objective]

Jay Pontiac-Buick is an automobile dealership located on the Bedford AutoMile in Bedford, OH. They have been serving the community for more than 45 years.

Ron Richnavsky, service manager at Jay Pontiac-Buick, considers himself very aggressive in the promotion of his business. For years he had been investing in direct marketing and personalized mailing activities with a specific vendor. His vendor spoke about personalization, but failed to deliver any but the most basic levels of direct marketing activity.

Prompt Recovery is a variable data and one-to-one marketing firm—specializing in design, printing, data management and consulting services—that has served the automotive dealership community for more than 10 years.

When Jeff Scott, CIO of Prompt Recovery (known at the time as CAResources), called on Richnavsky to pitch his company's approach, Richnavsky challenged Prompt Recovery to do a better job of meeting his needs than his existing supplier. He told Scott, "If you can deliver on the needs I outline for you, the contract is yours."

Working from this challenge, Prompt Recovery devised a program to use the information the dealership has concerning customer vehicle, repair history, driving habits and time or mileage lapses between visits, to convey a customized message to each vehicle owner recommending specific services their cars need.

[The Proposed Solution]

The decision was made to focus on owners of GM vehicles with model years of 1993 or newer, and to target vehicle owners who are current customers of the dealership that had been in at least once for "customer pay" (non-warranty) service. To reach this audience, personalized mailers were planned to remind customers when service was needed and to provide them with special offers on selected services.

Based on prior experience with automotive dealerships, the Prompt Recovery team pitched a concept that would allow the service manager to:

* Improve data management.

* Develop very specific targeting of promotions.

* Generate higher response rates to promotions.

* Lower costs by very targeted promotional activity.

* Track utilization of promotion materials (specifically coupons).

[How it Was Done]

Within the first week after the pitch, the Prompt Recovery staff went through an analysis that laid the foundation for the campaign. Extracting customer and vehicle histories from the Jay service database allowed them to create their own data structures for reporting and analysis. These data structures would provide business intelligence for the dealership, but would also be the input for rule-driven personalization of mailing pieces.

Prompt Recovery utilizes a two- to four-week implementation process, during which time it focuses on building out the functionality of the system. This involves two separate elements: creative development and data structure development. Separately, there is also an initiative to update image libraries so there will be an image representing every make, model and (if possible) color of vehicle that is in the dealership's database. At the end of the development cycle, they are ready for production.

Prompt Recovery uses a mix of Microsoft Office tools, QuarkXPress, Creo's Darwin Xtension, FoxPro (for the database aspect) and C++ (for additional custom programming).

At Prompt Recovery, raw data from the client is imported as text files, and is cleaned up using Microsoft products. It is then imported into database structures setup in FoxPro. Queries against the data structures are conducted with C++ and SQL tools. Page templates are built using Quark and the Darwin variable data Xtension, and data is fed to these via database queries. These data streams and the templates are sent to the printer, Consolidated Graphics Group in Cleveland, where they are run through Creo Spire RIP technology and are processed on a Xerox DocuColor 6060.

The program runs a regular distribution schedule as part of an ongoing reminder program, mailing once every two weeks. Each piece is variable based on the image of vehicle, needs of the vehicle based on driver behavior and prior utilization. Seldom will any two pieces be the same. The pieces start as a two-sided, four-color, 12x18˝ sheet. It is trimmed to 11x17˝ and folded, resulting in a first-class mailer that is 5.5x8.5˝.

[The Results]

Richnavsky admits there were some slips early on, but the return- on-investment and the increased level of flexibility in marketing today greatly exceeds his original expectations. Based on the support by Prompt Recovery and cooperative marketing from the manufacturers, the Jay service department has seen profits rise to 18 percent within the first six months of the campaign compared to 12 percent in the prior six months.

There are informal signs of success, too. Richnavsky says, "I know the campaign is working every time I see a customer carrying one of the mailers into the dealership. Just this week, I have had three customers come in with promotional coupons that are tied to their birthdays. Clearly, it is having an impact."

Alternatively, the data allows the dealership to educate customers about actions they should take. By regularly reporting on tire tread depth and brake pad thickness within the personalized communication, the dealership can drive customers to make inquiries or schedule specific maintenance for those services.

Among the achievements listed by Jay Pontiac-Buick and Prompt Recovery are:

* Providing a higher level of personalization for the dealership's customers in the promotions they receive.

* Providing a marketing piece that also educates customers about vehicle needs, preparing them for future promotions.

* Lowering the monthly cost of marketing.

* Achieving more flexibility in ways to approach clients.

* Jay's service department now generates 75 percent of their business from "customer pay" activity as opposed to warranty-based traffic. This compares to a standard dealership that averages about 40 percent "customer pay." This is important because it represents higher margin work and greater revenue.

One important benefit of the activity is not in the print promotions. Rather, it lies in the effective management and tracking of the data that is required as a foundation for the personalized printing. The process of doing performance checks, cleansing and tracking the effectiveness of the data within the campaigns provides solid customer data, useful reports and measurable results.

This case study comes from PODi's annual Best Practices in Digital Print research, the largest collection ever assembled of successful digital printing projects. PODi is an industry initiative with hundreds of member companies, including executive board members EFI, HP, IBM, NexPress, Pitney Bowes, Quark and Xerox. Membership in PODi is open to most types of companies and organizations involved in digital printing. Visit www.podi.org for more information.