Sonic Automotive management reiterated the four steps it wants to maintain that’s associated with One Sonic-One Experience, the company’s stand-alone pre-owned model. The strategy has been gradually rolled out since last summer, and the dealer group anticipates that it will be in place at about 40 of its 127 stores by the end of the year.

The four steps to executing the One Sonic-One Experience that the company spelled out again this week when it reported its second-quarter performance included:

1. Continue to focus on inventory management and pricing.

2. OSOE stores continue to improve across all areas of our business.

3. Continue to learn and have excellent CSI and guest feedback.

4. Begin rollout of technology – CRM, desking tool and appraisal tool — effective Aug. 1 to give stores access to this technology.

Sonic’s executive vice president of operations Jeff Dyke explained how the implementation has pushed the market in the dealer group’s backyard to a level that’s outperforming other footprints the group has. But when the strategy is leveraged in other places beyond just Charlotte, N.C., Dyke indicated Sonic plans some adjustments.

“When we first rolled out in Charlotte, we rolled everything out at one time, and we learned that you don’t want to roll everything out at one time. It’s like drinking from the fire hydrant,” Dyke said. “So, we’re now just doing the same thing, but just doing it in pieces and giving our stores the opportunity to use the technology we’ve developed.

“The technology is just fantastic, and so we’ve gotten a lot of requests for it. Actually we’ve even gotten a request outside of our company for it,” he continued. “We’re going to go slowly over the next — between now and the end of next year — to roll those three pieces out — our CRM, our desking and our appraisal tool — and then let the Charlotte market sort of catch up and see how it’s doing.”

Dyke anticipated that Sonic is going to be in “pretty good shape” by the end of next year with respect to the implementation of One Sonic-One Experience, which leverages the technological capability of an iPad and a trained employee to finalize a transaction from lead to delivery.

“Our market share is really starting to grow and so is profitability, so we’ll see how those things work,” Dyke said. “As we get better and better at executing in Charlotte, then we’ll pick some markets to roll the balance of the One Sonic-One Experience process out.”

Dyke also mentioned Sonic’s performance in its hometown isn’t just because of the One Sonic-One Experience.

“The Charlotte market is outperforming the rest of the company,” he said. “A lot of that is just because the new-car volumes are increasing, and we’re taking more trades. When you take more trades, you sell more cars. And so that’s part of it.

“The other part is we’re executing our play books and doing the things that we need to do in those stores,” he added. “As you can imagine, a lot of training and a lot of attention is going on. So, we expect some kind of lift.”

Recall work

Sonic has 15 Honda stores in its portfolio. That’s meant the service bays have stayed busy in light of so many Honda models being recalled because of defective Takata airbags. Dyke shared how those dealerships are handling that extra work along with the regular flow into the service drive.

“Actually what we’re doing is we’re pushing all the reconditioning hours into the evening and running double shifts, especially with Honda and BMW,” Dyke said. “We’re constrained in some cases from a facility perspective. We have worked really hard this year to hire a net gain of 206 technicians for the company.

“There has been constraint from both sides, but warranty business in particular at Honda with airbag recalls is just crazy,” he continued. “We’ve got this coming from every which direction. Whether we try to get them to set an appointment or they are just driving up, our shops are really, really full.

“We’re doing our best to also take the opportunity to review our guest needs and up-sell if there is an opportunity there, but it eats up the shop hours,” Dyke went on to say. “We really had to adjust those shop hours to deal with that. We have big Honda stores across the country, and it’s taking a lot of work to put us in a position to be able to deal with it.”

Storm damage

Two major series of thunderstorms struck the Denver area in late May and early June, leaving Sonic dealerships with close to 1,000 damaged vehicles. Multiple media reports indicated the storms produced hailstones as large as tennis balls in some areas.

The storms impacted Sonic’s Toyota, Chevrolet, Mercedes-Benz and BMW dealerships in the market, but Dyke noted the company’s EchoPark Automotive rooftops avoided damage.

“We got them all fixed. Then about 10 days later, we got another hailstorm and damaged the cars all over again,” Dyke said. “It was just the comedy of weather errors there. Hopefully that’s behind us and we don’t have to deal that anymore.”