COLUMBUS, Ohio -

For Rick Ricart, general manager of Ricart Automotive Group’s Used Car Factory — which averages 635 retail used vehicles sales a month — it’s all about taking care of the employees.

In fact, when asked to give an overview of his customer service strategy, Ricart said, “To me it all begins with employee satisfaction,” a philosophy passed down by his grandfather and founder of the company, Paul Ricart Sr.

“My grandpa once told me, ‘You take care of your employees, your customers, and your vendors, in that order,’” Ricart said.

“I believe in the definition of sales as a transfer of emotion from one person to another. And the attitude, morale and satisfaction of our sales staff, service advisers, techs, operators, etc., and anyone else that interacts with our customers, can’t give them the best possible experience if they themselves don’t love what they do,” he explained.

The customers work into this strategy, as well, since Ricart said the team-based environment fosters customer loyalty.

“We treat people how they deserve to be treated. And we also have a loyal customer base because we don’t let finger pointing and ‘who’s gonna pay to fix this’ type of things happen. We take care of the customer first and figure out the internal details after,” Ricart said.

What is now the Ricart Automotive Group got its start when Paul Ricart Sr. bought a small Ford franchise  in Canal Winchester, Ohio, in 1953.

After outgrowing the building and moving onto a new interstate running towards Columbus, Ohio, in the late 1960’s, Paul Ricart Sr. bought the property where the dealership currently sits — located 10 minutes southeast of downtown Columbus and close to Rickenbacker Air Force Base.

Paul Ricart Sr.’s sons, Fred Ricart (Rick Ricart’s father) and Rhett Ricart, took over the business in the early 80s.

The brothers also expanded, bought some outside locations, and increased the current location (67 acres) to include six new vehicle brands (Ford, Kia, Hyundai, Nissan, Mazda and Mitsubishi).

The Used Car Factory, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, now touts a second service drive, a six-acre test track, a Subway sandwich franchise, a fitness center, an Enterprise Rental office on site and a free car wash for its customers.

And this anniversary year has proved to be a strong one for the store. This past July, the Used Car Factory sold 662 pre-owned vehicles. As summer came to a close, the dealership was up 48 percent year-over-year for used sales.

What’s behind the jump?

“We developed some new time-to-market processes, and mixed with a strong market and the banks being flexible to give loans we are in the middle of a perfect storm,” Ricart explained.

Where is the Used Car Factory finding all these used vehicles in what many would call a tight supply environment for the pre-owned industry?

Surprisingly, Ricart says sourcing is not a problem, stressing there are plenty of used vehicle to acquire.

“I carry between $17 and $19 million dollars worth and never have a problem buying cars. But you do have to diversify and use every available outlet, auctions, online, private purchase, etc.,” he said.

Ricart explained it is more difficult than in the past to purchase a vehicle through traditional outlets, such as auctions, and expect a large profit margin.

With six brands to choose from, the dealership obtains about 50 percent of its used inventory by trade-in, and “most are one-owner homegrown cars, purchased here new, serviced here, and traded back to us,” said Ricart, who said this gives the dealership a huge advantage.

The dealership also offers all customers (sales and service) a two-year maintenance package below their cost to create the retention cycle.

Ricart also explained the Internet has changed the way dealers can source and sell cars.

“The Internet has created an efficient market, and you have to price competitively. With our Velocity -based inventory philosophy we have processes in place to get cars to the front line — the Internet — as fast as possible and priced appropriately,” Ricart shared.

(He was referring to vAuto’s Velocity Method of Management, which according to the vAuto website “is an investment-based philosophy for managing used vehicles that uses real-time market supply and demand data to help dealers increase the profitability, ROI and sales volumes of their used-vehicle operation.”)

In fact, the dealership’s digital marketing strategy is quite simple:

“We know that our greatest opportunity to convert Web traffic to an actual sale is our own website, so we spend any electronic media dollars, mainly television,  on branding and driving people to Ricart.com,” Ricart said.

The company also has a strong presence on the primary third party listing sites, such as AutoTrader.com, Cars.com and CarsDirect.com.

“Other than that, we spend very little on PPC (pay-per-click), SEM (search engine marketing), retargeting, or any other banner/impression type of digital advertising. The Internet world is way too saturated to get worthwhile kind of return on those programs,” Ricart said.

Ricart also stressed that the dealerships’ partners, such as vAuto, also play a big part in the overall pre-owned sales strategy.

While explaining what makes Ricart Automotive Group stand out, Ricart said, “The partners I have in Motor Trend and vAuto. Through Dale Pollak’s Velocity business model and what Motor Trend has brought to the table we can stand behind the cars we sell and still be competitively priced in the market. It’s a killer combination,” Ricart said.

In fact, the dealership is a Motor Trend Certified Dealer (MTCA).

“The MTCA allows us to certify the vast majority of our used inventory using the same consistent inspection process,” he said.

Though the store had participated in franchised CPO programs before, Ricart said, “MTCA allows us to basically take any unit with under 80,000 miles and do the same process. Plus the cost was much more effective.”

And while getting customers into the dealership is key to creating customer loyalty and retention, Ricart says dealers have to get out of the store, as well, to really connect with potential customers.

“Getting outside the dealership is just as important as the things we do here. Staying involved in the community is important,” he said.  “I’m big on education as an initiative. I like to help the local schools with grass-roots efforts of all different kinds, and make sure the Ricart name is strong and positive in our community.”

Lastly, when asked what makes his dealership stand out, Ricart gave the credit to his forefathers.

“I have to give all the credit to my father and uncle who really built a great company founded on strong family values, top notch advertising to solidify our name in the market for the past 30 years, and the very best of anything we need to succeed,” he said. “We also have incredible employees, most of them long-term, and they really care about this company. We are aggressive, competitive and compassionate, all at once.”

Sarah Rubenoff can be reached at srubenoff@autoremarketing.com. Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing on both LinkedIn and Twitter.