Ford Bringing Digital Service Kiosks to Dealerships
Photo: Ford Motor Company
A pilot program is underway to test out the effectiveness of installing digital service kiosks at Ford dealerships. The hope is that the pilot, currently ongoing at seven dealerships across the country, will demonstrate how the kiosks make it easier for customers to check in and select service during their visits.
“Our goal is to change the perception of the dealership experience,” said Robert De Filippo, global director, Ford Retail Customer Experience. “We can start to do this by meeting rising expectations for fast and reliable service and letting each customer know they matter to us.”
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According to early impressions of the pilot, which kicked off last fall, the average customer check-in time at a Ford digital service kiosk is just slightly over two minutes, which is estimated to be as little as a quarter of the time it takes to check in with a service advisor. Eighty-four percent of customers surveyed at one of the dealerships said that the kiosks make checking in easier with 90 percent saying that the kiosks sufficiently answered any questions they had.
How Ford’s digital kiosks work
When a customer arrives at a dealership with one of the digital kiosks, they first enter their phone number via touch screen, which then pulls up associated information like address and vehicle information. Once that’s been confirmed, the customer can select the services they’d like to have performed as well as see information on outstanding recalls.
Ford is also piloting kiosks that stand outside of dealerships, enabling drop-off or pick-up during a dealer’s off hours. The hope is that these kiosks will eventually offer the functionality to accept and return keys to drivers, making it easier for people to come and go at their convenience.
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Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.