How SparkServ Transforms BDC Training
Over the past five years, high vehicle prices—inflated by global inventory shortages—have been a major source of dealership profitability. However, as supply chains stabilize, dealerships have been feeling the impact on their bottom lines. According to the 2024 Presidio-NCM Average Dealership Performance Benchmark Report, industry profits declined 30.4 percent in the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
The bright spot, however, has been fixed operations. While new and used vehicle sales have declined over the past year, fixed operations have actually grown, increasing 5.4 percent in 2024 according to findings in the same report.
“When variable [cost] goes down, fixed sticks around,” said George Karolis, president of The Presidio Group, in an interview with WardsAuto. According to Karolis, fixed operations have provided dealerships with a “stable floor” for doing business, as consumers today are keeping their vehicles for longer and servicing them more regularly.
These transactions, which include service appointments and parts sales, comprise the majority of dealership gross-profits, 49.6 percent according to NADA. As a major revenue source, owners today must empower their fixed operations staff to be as effective as possible at turning inbound inquiries into booked appointments.
However, industry data shows that fixed ops staff face high rates of burnout and attrition, with 40 percent of BDC reps actually leaving the role before completing six months. As the six-month mark is typically when these employees start to maximize productivity, losing them before this critical juncture leaves dealerships with a lost investment in training and, more importantly, unrealized revenue.
SparkServ has been able to provide a solution for getting reps onboarded faster, booking appointments earlier on and lowering attrition rates. SparkServ streamlines operations with a fully integrated tech stack that connects manufacturer data, lead generation and outbound appointment scheduling—bridging a previously disjointed process.
“We are seeing dealerships using our software speed up their onboarding process by 30 percent,” said SparkServ CEO & Co-Founder McKenna Valley. “This gets these service BDC reps scheduling real appointments quicker, and lowers rep turnover while generating hundreds of additional service appointments during the onboarding period.”
By consolidating operations onto one platform, SparkServ has simplified the training process while eliminating the need for additional costly software like BDC Central and CDK. Dealerships that have transferred over to SparkServ have been able to realize an average of $58,000 in annual software savings while increasing productivity.
“Dealerships using our platform have seen huge improvements in savings and productivity,” said Valley. “SparkServ makes it easier to onboard, boosts appointment volume and streamlines operations to make reps more productive than ever before. We’ve seen 53 percent improvements in the performance of previously bottom-ranking reps, just on account of using our software.”
Through reducing training time, increasing retention and maximizing efficiency, SparkServ empowers service BDC teams to drive higher revenue and long-term profitability. To learn how SparkServ can help your dealership streamline operations and improve performance, click here to schedule a demo today.
