In response to intense pressure to generate after-sales revenue, many dealers establish dedicated Business Development Centers (BDCs) for their operations. This organizational shift significantly impacts workshop efficiency, allowing the service team to focus more on “fixed operations,” speed up core processes, and run a daily business more effectively. On the other hand, integrating BDC into dealership operations may create new challenges, particularly in managing internal communication and team collaboration.

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