Keffer Hyundai is one of the top-selling certified pre-owned dealerships in the U.S. for the Korean automaker.

But Dewayne Moser is not satisfied.

“We’re number two year-to-date with CPO sales, and we’ve had a goal all year of being number one,” Moser, the store’s vice president, co-owner and general manager, told Auto Remarketing. Moser also holds those same positions for Keffer Volkswagen.

“I think right now we’re 150 cars behind the first-place guys, so it will take a mammoth effort in the fourth quarter to reach that, but it’s always a good goal to have,” he said in the late-October interview.

By the end of October, the store’s CPO sales had reached 463 units year-to-date, trailing the first-place dealership by 162 vehicles.

Keffer Hyundai — located in Matthews, N.C., just outside of Charlotte — has been selling about 90 used vehicles per month this year, about half of these being CPO units. On the new-car side, the dealership moved 1,414 vehicles through the first nine months of 2011.

While many elements have helpd Keffer become a leading CPO dealer, one thing is for sure: employee training has been a major building block to the store’s success in the certified segment.

“You have to have the personnel that know the program, for one, and know how to sell a certified pre-owned car versus a regular used car. So we do a lot of training with the guys so they know the program, they know the benefits and they can sell the benefits to the customers,” Moser said.

“We’ve had our Hyundai district managers come in, probably quarterly, and do a review and recap of the program,” he added. “The old guys get to hear it again and if there are new people involved, they get to hear it for the first time.

“That’s probably step one … making sure those guys know the program. Because if our guys don’t know it, then once people call or email in, they can’t explain to them why it’s a value,” Moser continued.

“Some people in the market may be selling a Hyundai for a dollar or two less than we are, but the certified program makes it worth the money we’re asking,” he added. “The training is key, of course.”

The store also does weekly training, holding sales meetings on Mondays and Fridays that cover various topics, and CPO is always a part of these weekly meetings. Then there is even a more extensive two-hour quarterly training session.

This training push — among other factors — is something that John Fratianni, the senior manager of retail operations within Hyundai’s Southern region office, has noticed

“One thing that Dewayne does a great job with is training. His people get a great deal of training into the value proposition of CPO,” Fratianni said. “Also, it is a part of his culture at his store he is ‘all in’ on CPO.

“It’s not just a part-time venture,” he added. “It’s a main focus and profit center.”

But it’s more than just great training that has allowed Keffer Hyundai to succeed in CPO, Fratianni said.

“I think Dewayne’s great performance is not due to any single thing but a combination of all his efforts. I can tell you one thing: when you walk on his lot, you know where the CPO vehicles are, and they are well-maintained, clean, clearly merchandised and marked ‘standing tall and looking good!’” he continued.

Second to training, Moser points to inventory sourcing and advertising as bolstering his business.

“You’ve got to stock the cars to sell them, so we’ve made investments to go out to the auctions or be more aggressive on new-car trades. A lot of our CPOs come from new-car trade-ins,” he highlighted.

Moser continued: “Then you have to advertise so you can get the customers to come in for the cars.

“We’ve done all three,” he added, referring to training, stocking and marketing.

Finding CPO-Worthy Cars

While Moser said the store has been able to accomplish all three of these steps, securing that supply can certainly be a big challenge, as many dealerships can attest.

“It has been a challenge,” Moser noted, saying that the supply challenge has allowed the store to be more aggressive when going after new-car deals from customers in its database.

“I’d rather pay up for a car from a customer than at an auction,” he added.

Sharing some of the strategies the store uses to find CPO-worthy inventory, Moser noted that first step is through alerts that dealership has set up with Manheim. These alerts will notify the store’s buyers when a model with a specified age and mileage comes up for auction.

The buyer will then review the condition report and examine the car, run a Carfax vehicle history report and put a number on it. At that point, Keffer will send the buyer to the auction, “no matter where that might be.”

The dealership relies on the Trade-In Marketplace from AutoTrader.com as another sourcing avenue, and also connects with non-Hyundai dealers looking to offload Hyundai inventory that has come into their stores.

“In town and out of town … we’re known to buy pre-owned Hyundais,” Moser said. “So the guys at the Honda or Toyota or Ford or Chevy stores that trade for these cars, they’ll call us for a number.”

He added: “When demand is high and supply is low, you have to do all you can to keep the shelves full, if you will.”

Complicating that, of course, has been the industry-wide slowdown in lease returns, stemming from the leasing drought in late 2008. Lease returns are often a main avenue for dealerships to generate the necessary CPO supply.

In response to lease returns starting to dry up, Keffer Hyundai is tapping into its customer database every 60 to 90 days to generate new sales, as well as trade-ins.

Hyundai has been breaking records in the CPO market for a good part of this year, but of course, dealers still need to find that inventory somewhere.

“There’s no magic factory that produces these cars, so they’ve all got to find them one deal at a time or three or four at an auction. It’s not easy, it’s work, which is why a lot of dealerships don’t do it,” Moser noted.

Advertising for CPO

As for getting the word out to consumers about CPO, the “main driver” Moser said, has mostly been radio.

“Most of our advertising has been electronic, most of that being in radio. So we do a lot of morning and afternoon drive spots in town and talk about the advantages of a like-new car for a lesser price and the value that that represents,” Moser noted.

The store also utilizes the Web and a little bit of newspaper ads. Keffer does not turn to TV advertising for CPO.

The dealership advertises its CPO inventory a great deal on AutoTrader.com and Cars.com. Keffer makes sure the listings include the “best pictures, the best descriptions” and the CPO logo so that consumers can distinguish the certified cars from others.

“And then they can click on the button and it tells why this car is different and better: the warranty advantages, the towing, the rental-car coverage, all the things that separate it from just a regular used Hyundai,” he stressed.

On the financing front, the CPO financing deals from Hyundai Motor Finance have proven beneficial for marketing.

Additionally, the dealership has given incentives to its salesmen for selling CPO cars.

“We also pay our sales guys a little more for a CPO car than a regular used car, so they’re not taking any kind of hit personally when they sell CPO cars, so that can be good thing for them as well,” Moser explained. “Like we incentivize new-car sales, we incentivize CPO sales (for the staff) in the same way.”

Hyundai Hitting Its Stride

Though the accomplishments are many, Keffer is not alone in its CPO success. Hyundai, overall, has had a strong year for certified sales.

Through October, the automaker has moved 38,486 CPO units, compared to 18,348 certified sales in the first 10 months of 2010. That represents nearly a 110-percent hike.

October was the automakers second-best month of all time for CPO sales with 4,836 units sold. The best-ever month: September, when Hyundai moved 5,116 CPO units.

“It’s been a high focus of Hyundai management all the way down to our local district managers in emails and in correspondence,” Moser said.

“And Hyundai’s got a hot car right now that’s very difficult to get on the new side, so if you’re going to sell all that you can sell and make as much money and sales as you can, then CPO is a pretty good answer for not having all the new cars you can get,” he added.

Hyundai’s top sellers in the certified market year-to-date have been the Elantra and Sonata.

Likewise, Moser has had similar experiences with these vehicles, as well, listing them as Keffer’s hot-sellers in the CPO space.

“We’ve done a good job this year with the Sonata and Elantra. And I think that’s been helped by the shortage on the new-car side with those two models,” he noted. “So, it’s been a perfect fit for us, if you will.”