A detail department can be the “goose that lays golden eggs for auto dealers.” Having a properly functioning department is something that can generate $20,000 to $30,000 a month in revenues.

Most dealerships do not sell detailing services to the public for a number of reasons. However, a well functioning detail department can be a profitable part of the dealership, which will not only satisfy their in-house used-car detailing and new car make-ready needs, but also generate substantial revenues and even provide an opportunity to attract more vehicle-buying customers who come in for the detailing service.

Most dealers lose money in their detail departments because they view and operate it as an expense area, rather than a profit-center department.

RULES HAVE CHANGED
What dealers must recognize today is that the rules for operating a detail department in a dealership have changed. Unfortunately, dealer-principals, their general managers and just about everyone else in the organization, think of the detail department as the “Cinderella” of the dealership and of those who work there as “red-headed step children.”

LET’S TALK ABOUT PROFITABLE OPERATION
For dealerships that do have an in-house detail department, they must look at it as they would the service department.

For example, there are only so many hours in the day the department operates. So what must be done is this: take the number of detailer workers in the department and multiply that number by the number of hours in operation. For example, a staff of five working 8 hours a day equals 40 hours. That means you must have at least 40 hours of work.
If you do not have that much in-house work then you will loose money unless you supplement the work with sales of detailing services to your service customers and the public. From a department profit standpoint, it does not matter if you are processing wholesale work or selling to the public. That said, the public will pay double what the new- and used-car department would pay the detail department.

What a dealer principal or general manager has to do is insure that whoever is in charge of the detail department is carefully correlating labor hours to work hours, and that they have sufficient work for the labor on the clock.

To do this means not only doing your in-house work, but also offering the detail service to your service customers and the public. You will be surprised how profitable outside detail work can be and how it will generate more work by word of mouth referrals.

PERSONNEL
Having a busy and profitable detailing department can solve your personnel problems. Having constant work allows the detailer to work everyday, which helps to keep them and eliminates costly turnover. A detailer leaves a dealership when they are not getting enough hours. This is certainly less problematic than replacing personnel all the time, which seems to be a major problem for dealers with an in-house department.

The quality of the detail work should be consistently good with a trained and stable staff, as well.

Without question, the inability to hire and retain good help is one of the reasons dealers do not have an in-house detail department or decide to close a department.
Ask any dealer who has closed an in-house detail department, most will tell you it had to do with getting and keeping good personnel.

Too many dealers mistakenly believe contracting with an outside detail business will solve the problem.
However, for the same reason they have problems with personnel in their in-house department, they will have problems with outside operations.

How so?

It’s simple;  most outside detail operations hire the same kind of people that that dealer has hired and pay them even less money.

If a dealer is lucky enough to find a good outside detail company, then they will be paying higher prices and have no control over when the vehicles are completed and back on the lot for sale.

If you have an in-house detail department or plan to start one know that to be profitable, you have to keep the staff busy all the time. If they aren't, then the department will not be profitable.

Many times, it is too much for the dealer to find sufficient work to keep the staff busy, but this is solved if the dealer has a program to sell detail services to the public.  
Think about it.You have a captive, in-house market ready to buy the detail services.

WHAT IS REQUIRED?
As mentioned earlier, the dealer-principal or the general manager must make a commitment to the detail department as they do with any other department in the dealership.

That means they must manage as they do any other department: have good supervisory management, a good shop manager and good staff.

You need to have a proper space in which the staff can work and function efficiently, not some back alley bay(s) or garage “out back.”

And you need to have the latest detail equipment technology available.

You are not going to get it done with a $50 shop vacuum, a $150 buffer and a bunch of chemicals in plastic bottles. Gone are the days when a detailer can do detailing with primitive technologies. Vehicles have expensive two and three stage paint finishes, alloy wheels, sophisticated leathers, plastics, etc. You simply have to invest money in the purchase of chemical dispensing systems, air tools, vapor steamers, extractors, ozone generators, etc. And, dealers must  provide the necessary training for people who are trainable so they are aware of the new vehicle technologies mentioned.

This is the reality of operating a professional, in-house department.  It is not easy.

However, the payoff can be tremendous by both turning out in-house work better and faster, and selling detailing services to the public.

A FINAL WORD ON PERSONNEL
Getting good personnel is always a challenge, as mentioned.  And the “first” rule is to not hire the typical “experienced detailer” that you may have hired in the past.  They are typically transient employees not looking for a long-term job, but casual work. Their experience, whatever it might be is only good to you, if  you let them do what they want, and that is “the inmates running the asylum.” You would not do that in any other department in the dealership; why the “detail department?

The rule to follow is to hire people with good values who want a career and teach them the skills they need.

The key to obtaining and keeping good people is to selectively hire and pay them well, and give them good training.

If a dealer continues to skimp on the quality of their detail personnel, they will have continual problems.  
When a dealer tells me they cannot keep good people in their detail department that says to me a number of things:
•    They have hired the wrong people.
•    They are not being managed properly.
•    They are not being given the respect any employee wants.
•    They are not making enough money.

If a dealer continues to go “cheap” with the detail department; in terms of management, personnel, equipment and training, they will end up having to spend a lot more money in the long run.          

Remember, every employee wants to work in a comfortable environment, and a detail technician is no different from anyone else in the dealership.

If a dealer cannot find and keep good detailers, it is usually traced to a poor hiring, poor working environment, poor lighting and poor work conditions. There is a demand for good people, and they will always go to companies where they feel they will be respected, have an opportunity to advance, have security and be paid fairly. Having a detail department requires a full commitment from the dealer.

An example of a dealer who is committed to their detail department is one who realizes that in order to have a professional detail department they have to have enough detail work to keep their employees busy. This means insuring that you have sufficient in-house work for them to do everyday, and if you cannot guarantee this then set up a marketing program to sell detailing to your service customers and to the public. By offering detail services to your customers, you meet the motorists need for total car care.

For the committed dealer, finding qualified personnel is not that hard. In this economy there are people available who are dependable and can be counted on to show up on time ready to work everyday.

Making the effort is worth it. By hiring the right detail personnel, a dealer can have a detail department that will drive potential car buyers into the dealership. While they are getting their vehicles detailed, the customers might wander around the showroom or used-car lot and look at inventory. If they are looking for a new car and they see some-thing they like, that detail customer is converted into a car buyer.

A well functioning detail department can easily generate from $20,000 to $30,000 a month in retail detail business, more than paying the expense for in-house detail work.

Dealers are short-changing themselves by not selling detail services to their customers. The number of detail businesses in the U.S.has expanded from 4000 in 1980, to more than 15,000 today. This number is not including carwashes that offer detailing, body shops, and some dealers who sell detailing. They are all your customers doing business with someone else.

SUMMARY
As the dealer principal or general manager, you need to put the money in to develop the infrastructure needed to run a good detail department. That means having the good supervisory management, shop management, good people and the latest detailing equipment.

All of this will pay for itself by a better functioning department and the revenues that will come from selling your detail services to the public.

Ultimately, having a good detail department also means more than another revenue source. By having a detail department aimed at serving the public at large and not just your own in-house needs, you are bringing in new potential buyers to look at your both your new- and used-car inventory. You will create a captive audience.

And a good detail department can do more. When a customer brings in a vehicle for detailing, a dealer can obtain valuable information about the customer. It is built¬-in market research.

The alert dealer will know all sorts of things about that customer. The dealer can learn how that customer uses their car. Do they baby it, or do they run it through the ringer and wear it out? With such knowledge, the dealer can better help the customer make an informed decision on the best vehicle to buy when it comes time to purchase another car.

By having a professional detail department, a dealer can get a customer used to bringing their vehicle into the dealership on a regular basis. Need a wash, a carpet shampoo, or a wax? Take it to your dealership.
There comes that time in every car's life when it becomes counterproductive to keep dumping money into that vehicle. If you have a good relationship with your customers, and they bring their cars to you for a detail service, you can tell that customer when it is time to get a new car.

A good detail department will give you control. It will give the customer a reason to keep coming back to you. But if you're going to have a detail department, you can't go in half¬hearted. As they say in poker, you have to go all in — but the rewards can be huge.

Today you need every edge you can get. Dealers who do not keep up, fall behind, and as we have seen this last three years, go out of business.  

If I can assist you in any way, contact me at buda@detailplus.com.