How to Get the Most Value From Key Control Technology Throughout Your Dealership

As we start a new year, dealers have mixed outlooks on the success of their businesses. According to Kerrigan Advisors, 43% expect lower profits, another 43% foresee no change, and only 14% anticipate an increase. However, Haig Partners predicts that while vehicle profits will decline, average profits will remain 50% higher than in 2019 due to earnings from fixed ops and F&I. To maximize your profits, it’s important to take advantage of every tool at your disposal — even your key control system. Here are a few ways to get the most value from your key management technology throughout your dealership.

Sales

When it comes to increasing your sales department’s profitability, every minute, every customer, every key, and every vehicle counts. Effective key control helps maximize all these elements, ensuring you take advantage of each opportunity and use every resource efficiently.

When it comes to increasing your sales department’s profitability, every minute, every customer, every key, and every vehicle counts.

Implement Real-Time Tracking

Real-time key and vehicle tracking dramatically improves efficiency and rekeying costs. When a customer arrives for a test drive, sales staff can instantly locate the desired vehicle instead of spending valuable time searching the lot. They can see the location of the key or vehicle both when checking a key out from the key control system or on their mobile device as they’re walking the lot. This ability can shave as much as 45 minutes off the sales cycle. Plus, with fewer lost keys, you could save up to $2,000 a month on rekeying costs.

Optimize Lot Management

Electronic key control systems don’t just keep tabs on your keys — they provide valuable insights to help improve inventory management. For instance, instead of letting unsold vehicles sit idle on your lot, key control systems can generate reports to identify which vehicles have been on the lot the longest. With real-time tracking, you can see a map of your lot and filter vehicles by year, make, model, trim, or time since their last move.

This data allows you to focus your sales team’s efforts on specific vehicles, adjust pricing to improve turnover, and even group vehicles by type to optimize lot organization. By using this data to inform decisions, you can address inventory challenges more efficiently, improving both lot layout and sales strategies.

Manage Dealer Plates

Securing and tracking dealer plates is essential for minimizing risk and improving accountability within your dealership operations. Marsh Advisory, a risk management firm, recommends securing dealer plates out of sight inside the dealership, such as inside an electronic key machine. In addition, Marsh recommends formally logging and tracking dealer plate use if they’re not assigned to individual users and auditing dealer plates every day to account for each plate. Using your key control system to centralize storage and automatically track access to dealer plates helps you simplify this area of your operations.

Secure Spare Keys

Securing spare keys is crucial for preventing lost keys and minimizing the risk of vehicle theft. By storing both primary and spare keys in your key control system, you ensure all keys are accounted for. With real-time tracking, you can also easily differentiate primary and spare keys on a map of your lot, adding an extra layer of visibility and control.

Service

This year, 75% of dealers are counting on parts and service to boost their earnings. That’s why maintaining smooth operations and efficient key control in your service department is more important than ever. Without it, you risk mismanaged loaner cars, repair delays, miscommunications with the sales team, and even theft of customer vehicles.

To get the most out of your system, choose one that’s tailored to service departments — without excessive key capacity or features you won’t use. An effective service key control system should include:

• Quick key access to help manage peak service hours
• Loaner vehicle management
• Real-time key and vehicle tracking
• RO tracking
• Sales-to-service networking

Investing in key control technology is worth it for improved efficiency alone. You’ll spend less time searching for keys, reduce customer wait times, and avoid service delays caused by misplaced keys.

Dealership-Wide

On top of improving security and reducing risk, effective key control is a valuable tool that enhances dealership operations.

Improve Sales-to-Service Communication

When both sales and service departments focus on getting the most out of key control technology, the whole dealership benefits. With sales-to-service networking and real-time tracking, staff can instantly locate keys and vehicles anywhere in the dealership. For example, if a customer wants to test drive a vehicle that’s being serviced, the salesperson would be able to find its location in real time and plan accordingly.

In service, sales-to-service networking can help service advisors streamline vehicle upgrade offers by providing access to inventory details, as well as key and vehicle locations. This allows for a smooth handoff to the sales team.

With a big-picture view of key and vehicle activity, you can identify operational bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement by tracking peak usage times and department patterns.

Maintain Your Reputation

By enhancing operational efficiency, effective key control also plays a crucial role in protecting your dealership’s reputation. Customers notice when key control processes are lacking, because it affects the overall customer experience, whether due to lost keys or delays in service. Customers won’t hesitate to share a negative experience online and by word of mouth, affecting your brand image. With reliable key control throughout your dealership, you can focus on providing a smooth, consistent experience for your customers.

In a market where most dealers are expecting flat or declining profits, it’s important to maximize the value of every tool in your business. While electronic key control might seem like a basic solution for securing keys, it has the potential to improve your bottom line across both variable and fixed ops. By improving sales cycles, reducing rekeying costs, optimizing your lot, streamlining service operations, and enhancing interdepartmental communication, you can maintain strong profit margins even in challenging market conditions.