Usually, a booster launches a rocket.

This time, RockED is launching Booster.

The automotive training platform announced the creation of Booster, an automated performance management system designed to improve service advisor performance. RockED said the system combines its learning platform with live performance leaderboards and “tailors coaching to the individual gaps of every employee.”

In a news release, RockED pointed to a gap in many dealership service departments between top-performing and underperforming service advisors in close rates on services, often due to inconsistent training and lack of product knowledge. That gap, the company said, can make customers miss recommendations that affect their vehicle’s safety and longevity, as well as leaving income on the table for dealerships.

Booster is designed to close that gap by giving advisors visibility into how they’re performing in key metrics and where they rank compared to their peers and the broader store, using data directly from the DMS data, and pairing that with targeted training in a gamified experience.

The result, RockED said, is engaging, competitive and motivating, and delivers the tools advisors need to improve by directly addressing their individual gaps.

“Service departments aren’t necessarily losing revenue because of a lack of customers,” RockED co-founder Marco Schnabl said. “They’re often losing it because of inconsistent advisor performance. When top advisors outperform others by multiples in the same lane, that gap can cost a store six or even seven figures annually.”

The company said Booster automatically identifies high, average and low performers based on performance metrics aligned with the dealer’s priorities, such as tire sales, brake sales or alignments, then automatically deploys specific training to those who need it most.

“Managers are wearing too many hats, and often they do not have the time to coach their employees,” co-founder and CEO Matthias Stoever said. “Booster takes the guesswork out of the equation. It tells the advisor exactly where service advisors are deficient and provides the path to fix it, while taking the administrative burden off the manager’s plate.”

Booster, which can be accessed through RockED’s app, include automated learning paths customized for each service advisor, conversational role-play through an AI-powered practice center, live leaderboards to create healthy competition that incentivizes bottom performers to climb, targets broken down into manageable weekly pieces that show advisors how many units they need to sell to reach a dealership’s average or reach the top of the leaderboard, and a manager dashboard providing real-time visibility into who is training and who is falling behind, as well as the ability to send direct notifications to keep the team on track.

RockED said more than 300 dealers are currently using Booster, showing an average 10-15% increase in sales of products like tires, brakes and alignments.

In the RockED release, Bill Demaree, group director of fixed operations for Indianapolis-based dealership group Tom Wood Automotive said seeing the percentage of opportunities that slipped away “completely changed” how he viewed the business.

“Booster showed us exactly where the gaps were, and once we connected training to those gaps, we started seeing the sales penetration increase,” he said. “Even something as simple as air filters, moving the close rate just a little bit represents real money. In our case, it was more than $1 million in potential gross profit.”

RockED said it has plans to expand Booster’s reach from the service lane to all departments.