According to the Harvard Business Review, it can cost 5 to 25 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. This is because it is generally easier to sell to an existing customer than to locate and sell to a new one.
Not only this, but one customer’s loyalty can result in word of mouth advertising that leads to additional customers. This saves you even more time and money when it comes to finding new clients.
To do this, you must maintain strong customer relationships and the way that you run your automotive parts department is key to achieving this goal – it can make or break your customer relationships.
With customers being able to find an increased amount of information online, such as reviews of your business, alternate providers, and better pricing, it is imperative that you measure and improve your customer relationships whenever possible.
Two key performance indicators for measuring your customer services levels are customer retention and order fulfilment.
To effectively retain customers, you have to provide them with a good, if not great, customer service experience.
By understanding how loyal your customers are based on their interactions with your business and their repeat purchases, you can better understand how your parts department is performing and where improvements can be made.
To measure customer retention, look at the ratio of return customers to repeat customers.
Being able to provide your customers with the parts they need when they need it, is critical to ensuring your customers come back.
To measure the number of successful customer fulfilment, you will want to look at the number of closed orders and consider the strengths and weaknesses of each: delivery time, fulfilment accuracy, inventory turnover, rate of return, and customer satisfaction, etc.
Customer service levels are only one of the many performance indicators you should be measuring to ensure the success of your business but, as with all goals within your parts department, strong customer service levels require a well-managed inventory.
Maximizing efficiency, minimizing wait times and accurately forecasting supply and demand are just some of the ways you can improve your customer service levels, and these all directly relate to your parts department.
For more information on managing your inventory to help you maintain the best customer service rating possible, contact us today.