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Times are tough for the American automotive industry. Top automakers have closed hundreds of dealerships as they retool amid the global economic crisis. Dealers that remain are looking to their parts and service departments to make up lost sales revenue for 2009, and possibly even for 2010. To accomplish these goals, automotive service consulting firms suggest that dealerships look to three top business priorities: customer service, convenience and follow-up.

Customer service may seem to be well in hand. After all, most service departments book as many hours as they have available, since hours are what they sell along with parts. However, automotive service consulting companies say that many dealers overlook the fact that any customer service process can be improved. The key is to be transparent, that is, to have a process that’s clearly understood and practiced by the employees, but doesn’t stick out to the customers.

A process is made up of a series of actions, done in a specific order that will create consistent results when followed. Processes define what different parts of the organization do. Good processes clearly tell an employee how to go about his or her job and how each worker contributes to create a consistent result. Good processes shouldn’t restrain employees; they should be seen as “best practices” to follow for achieving the desired end result. Thus it pays dealers to take a look periodically not only at the bottom-line revenue from their service and parts departments, but the ways in which those departments go about their tasks. Automotive service consulting firms estimate that dealers can increase their profits without having to increase their volume if they’ll inspect their processes for actions that waste time and money.

These are just two of the questions that dealers can ask about the workings of their service and parts departments. According to automotive service consulting firms, smart dealers maximize their profits by minimizing costly, wasted effort and time.

The first step in evaluating service process is to judge how “transparent” they are. Transparency means that the service department operates smoothly because each employee knows clearly what to do, and does it so unconsciously well that customers never notice how hard they’re working. This kind of “unconscious competence” is only achieved when management examines processes step by step and eliminates everything that doesn’t add value for the customer, or income to the bottom line.

That’s why follow-up after service appointments is crucial to sustaining business. If the customer is happy with the service department, he or she will be more likely to stick with the same automaker when it’s time for a new vehicle.

Customers who don’t feel that their business is truly valued by a dealership’s service department are much more likely to choose another automaker when it comes time for their next car or truck. Studies have found this to be true no matter how many innovative features the automaker’s next models may carry.

Keeping service processes transparent, convenience as a priority and follow-up calls prompt will help dealerships and their service departments hang on until the auto industry bounces back, but until then they have their trusty service consulting helping their business every step of the way.