Off the phone, shops stay on the job: Service departments hum as call center takes care of customers

摘要

Business has been good at Executive Auto Group's service departments lately. In fact, it was almost getting too good. Customers were phoning in to schedule service appointments at such a volume that shop advisers simply couldn't get to all the calls as fast as they wanted. "You hate to admit it, but we were letting business get away from us," says Gary Gargano, director of fixed operations for the Wallingford, Conn., group with nearly a dozen dealerships. Executive resolved the problem by running its phones through a third-party call management service provided by AutoLoop under the name Engage. All incoming service calls now are routed to AutoLoop's off-site call center in Houston that is connected back into Executive's garages. Customers can get questions answered, make service appointments, obtain repair information or check on the status of a job.