Proactive dealers have already recognized service advisors’ time limitations, as they can only manage a certain number of customer interactions. Today, messaging apps, email, and texting have significantly increased the volume and immediacy of communication, transforming what was once a manageable aspect of their role into an overwhelming workload. The digital era poses the following question.

Can the traditional dealership model for customer communication still function effectively in this modern, digital era?

All parties involved -> dealers, OEMs, and DMS providers must understand that the key task is to refocus on core (Fixed Ops) while keeping pace with digital communication and interaction growth. With the aftersales mantra, “Never miss a lead and sale again,” dealerships initiate their cultural shift and build specialized dealership departments known as BDC.

I was fortunate to learn how BDCs were practically established, began operations, and rapidly expanded their scope, creating momentum to build a future business for many dealers.

Key takeaways:

• BDC is no longer described as a “call center”; its scope has quickly evolved and expanded, particularly in after-sales.
• BDC bridges Fixed and Online Ops gaps in the dealership’s processes.
• BDC should operate as a specialized, autonomous “task force group” within dealership departments, primarily managing customer communications and interactions.
• BDC helps maintain regular communication with customers, proactively reminding them of services and scheduling appointments to boost the future business stream and keep the workshop busy.
• Generally, large dealers and dealer groups aim to establish their own BDC to gain better control over the processing. However, a BDC is costly for small dealers, and therefore, they look for alternative solutions, such as outsourcing those activities to professional third-party providers. Both solutions have clear pros and cons.
• I confirm that there is no single best winning recipe for building an effective BDC; it is more about how effectively dealers can tailor, articulate, and implement their after-sales strategies using the power of BDC.
• Creating the BDC department is one of the most effective strategies for achieving service excellence. Nevertheless, it must be appropriately implemented.

All those small steps, one by one, will contribute to customer retention and loyalty overall.

So, let us move back to service personnel. Historically, service advisors primarily handled customer interactions through phone calls or walk-in visits, with the ability to schedule outgoing calls and appointments as needed. However, customer habits have changed in this digital world, and dealers must remain highly responsive.

The BDC centralizing communication tasks decreases the chances of duplicate customer outreach, allowing service advisors, technicians, and other Fixed Ops people to focus on their core responsibilities, such as diagnosing, repairing, and maintaining vehicles, which are essential for effectively operating the core business.

In addition to gaining experience implementing BDC, I researched various sources to identify the scope of BDC after-sales operations within dealerships. I have created a detailed overview to illustrate its scope.

BDC for After-Sales

In addition to enhancing customer communication and interactions through closer collaboration with customers, dealers have recognized new business opportunities and cogently focus on building customer retention and loyalty.

In my research, I identify another shift: the scope of the BDC is expanding rapidly due to the evolving use of AI, and the trends and activities of the BDC are aligning more closely with the Service Excellence department, as observed in other industries. However, dealers have yet to embrace this perspective.

There are many other topics, such as how to review BDC KPI effectively, the pros and cons of internal vs external BDC, and the role of the dealer management system and AI. I will keep those for further discussion.

I will end my article with a Roman Proverb,

“The man who is everywhere is nowhere.”

Focus drives results. That is what BDC excels at.

Dr. Juraj Hanus, hanus@taxapa.com

Data Analytics & Automotive Applications Expert for Dealerships

Sources

Mitchell, S. (November 06 2020). How dealers can improve their BDC processes. CBT News. Retrieved May 06, 2025, from https://www.cbtnews.com/how-dealers-can-improve-their-bdc-processes/

How to Improve Your Dealership’s BDC Experience. Automotive Mastermind. Retrieved May 18, 2025, from https://www.automotivemastermind.com/blog/uncategorized/how-to-increase-dealership-bdc-effectiveness/

The Pros and Cons of an External BDC for Auto Dealerships. CDK Global. Retrieved May 21, 2025, from https://www.cdkglobal.com/insights/pros-and-cons-external-bdc-auto-dealerships

6 Key Ingredients to Build a Successful Car Dealership BDC. Volie. Retrieved May 22, 2025, from https://volie.com/6-key-ingredients-to-build-a-successful-car-dealership-bdc/

What Is a BDC? Retrieved May 22, 2025 https://www.acvmax.com/blog/what-is-a-bdc,

The Lost Sales in Aftersales, Dr. Juraj Hanus, https://medium.com/@jurajhanus/lost-sales-in-aftersales-ffe7238f61b9

The post The Evolving Role of the Business Development Center (BDC) in Automotive Aftersales appeared first on TaXaPa.

Sure, dealers can see it as an excellent upselling opportunity, and showrooms are shaping into shopping malls. On the other hand, the high number of waiters puts much pressure on the dealer organization and workshop planning and creates additional costs, especially during marketing service campaigns or tire seasons.

What more do we know about the waiters?

In fact, waiters are more “allergic” to potential service delays than customers who are out of the workshop following their daily routines. AND waiters are less likely to approve additional work because unexpected extra time without their vehicles may significantly affect their schedule.

What I see as the most challenging experience for dealers is to start to control and manage the “right” number of waiters in the workshop during peak hours. How good (or bad) one can handle it has become trendy again.

Dealers are proposing better access to loan vehicles, introducing express services for loyal customers, and motivating them to visit their dealership in the afternoons. The call centers proactively ask if the customer wants to wait during their vehicle inspection and inspire them to refrain from doing so to keep the balance. In addition, dealers’ online booking platforms contain a new option if a customer wants to wait or needs a shuttle. Those simple policies help dealers manage the workshop utilization and balance it with the maximum number of waiting customers.

Dealers should know that modern dealer management applications can provide a simple way to track and visualize that information per day, per hour, or per dealer location. For instance, check the screen below. It can be a simple chart with a track function, BUT carefully integrated into the service booking process. While finalizing service appointment booking, with information on hand, dealers can quickly understand the situation and plan further steps accordingly.

See an example of such functionality that is popular in the market, like Benelux.

I look forward to your feedback and am genuinely interested in your experience.

Dr. Juraj Hanus, hanus@taxapa.com

Data Analytics & Automotive Applications Expert for Dealerships

The post How to balance workshop utilization with the right number of waiting customers appeared first on TaXaPa.

When you need to store your seasonal tires, there is no better place than the Tire Hotel. Tire Hotel is a service provided by dealerships in order to store seasonal tires on your behalf. Tire storage is well accepted in countries where weather conditions require the usage of different types of tires during the year (summer, winter, spikes…).

For dealerships, the Tire Hotel is attractive as well. It can bring an extra revenue stream during the tire season. Frankly asking, who among service managers is willing to ignore such business opportunities? This brings me back to the starting point of my article.

Without a doubt, managing tire storage effectively requires a functional base in the DMS. The DMS must provide a solid end-to-end solution in order to assist dealerships with the tire storage process as well as with managing a tire inventory effectively and paperless. For instance, the process of tire storage, retrieval, and change accompanying mobile devices and barcode labels can improve inventory handling significantly.

Finally, yet importantly, tires are a critical component of the vehicles as well as an element of active safety. Regular inspections and capturing tire conditions (e.g. the tire profile depth) in the DMS bring extra benefits for both parties. For the best customer service, convenience, care, and safety when dealing with seasonal tires, and for dealerships, it is a generator of vehicle appointments and future customer visits.

Let me comment briefly on incadea.dms. As a part of our latest product release, besides other handy functionalities, we have introduced a new add-on module named Tire Hotel. Tire Hotel is a solid solution that can easily assist dealerships with a tire storage process while using the functionality from the DMS more effectively.

It fully covers the most important processes of storage, retrieves, and change of tires using a single page named Tire Hotel Order. This allows users to perform tasks faster, and with fewer clicks see all necessary information related to customers’ tires.

We consider how easy, intuitive, and simple functions can be in order to manage a tire warehouse effectively. We believe the best solutions are those which are intuitive to learn and easy to use. I call this style the design for life.

Interested in more? Feel free to contact me.

Dr. Juraj Hanus, hanus@taxapa.com

Data Analytics & Automotive Applications Expert for Dealerships

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