RFID Offers Personal Touch

High-line dealerships no longer are the only ones using radio-frequency identification technology for customer-relationship management.

Now a dealership selling Smart micro cars is using the system for automated welcoming and messaging when customers drive into the dealership service department.

It is Smart Center Buckhead in Atlanta, GA. A companion store, Mercedes-Benz of Buckhead, has utilizing MyDealerLot's Service Drive Concierge since last fall.

The Mercedes store is planning on expanding the capability of the system through service bay and car wash completion using RFID tracking.

Here's how it works:

As customers approach dealership service lanes, an RFID tag affixed to the front of sold or previously serviced vehicles' rear-view mirrors beam signals.

Those signals allow dealership staffers to quickly obtain computer-stored customer information, ranging from the owner's name to a car's service history.

Two 50-in. ceiling-suspended plasma monitors provide automated personalized welcoming in conjunction with automated internal messaging of the customer's arrival.

“This technology has matured considerably and is capable of providing a number of key benefits from the automatic scanning of customer and loaner vehicles as they pull into the drive,” says Mercedes-Benz of Buckhead Parts and Service Manager Geoff Meeker.

Moreover, obtained and stored data can be used “for a variety of important analytics,” he says.

Retail vehicle inventory is sold with the RFID tags already installed for future customer identification and messaging.

Buckhead presented the system to their consultative dealer 20-group as the store's best idea.

“It touches so many groups within the dealership: customers, service advisors, cashiers, porters and even sales people,” Meeker says. “Sales people now know the instant their customer has pulled into the service drive, allowing for a new touch point.”