FEATURE BY JOHN FAIRCHILD R.O. QUALITY & CUSTOMER RETENTION 9 Critical Steps to Improving Repair Order Quality and Customer Retention! D uring my 40 plus years in the retail car business I have enjoyed a long and very diverse career helping dealers improve their customer experience and profitability in the Service Department. I am constantly exposed to all sorts of increasingly complex and fantastic tools that are now at Dealers' disposal to assist in running their operations in a smoother, smarter and more lucrative way. What I have realized is that no process, tablet, software, kiosk, or any other strategy will work UNTIL WE WORK IT! Very often, when I perform a needs assessment for a Service Department, the lacking elements are simply ACCOUNTABILITY AND PLAIN OLD EXECUTION! Yes, a lot of the time folks know exactly what to do but are failing to actually do it! But wait a minute. Let's be fair. There are so many scenarios, especially in the last few years as the economy has heated up (and remains RED HOT) where Service Advisors and Technicians have had to work with minimal or sometimes skeleton crews. As your people get 40