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	<title>Motor Industry KPI and best practice provided by Jeff Smith</title>
	<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com</link>
	<description>A database of useful best practice ideas for improving dealer profitability in cars, trucks and bikes, KPI measurment and Customer Satisfaction</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:00:56 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>The Ashtray</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Peter, a friend of mine, sent this story to me because he knows I work in the Motor Industry. For one company in the story, it’s great news but for the other company it’s a real nightmare and the sad part is they don’t even know about it!
You have to read this one to believe [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/the-ashtray/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>A New Way of Thinking</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Exactly 400 years ago, on 25 August 1609, the Italian astronomer and philosopher Galilei Galileo showed Venetian merchants his new creation, a telescope – the instrument that was to bring him both scientific immortality and, more immediately, a whole lot of trouble.



Reconstruction of Galileo&#8217;s telescope by Jim Sugar/Corbis

A refinement of models first devised in the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/a-new-way-of-thinking/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Mystery Shop exercise looking for a new car</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Mystery Shop Nightmare! &#8211; by Mat Everitt
I wanted to share with you my findings from a recent series of mystery shop visits I completed during the peak month of March. The objective of the visits was to obtain a price guide, but I decided to approach each dealer as a normal customer after a new [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/mystery-shop-exercise-looking-for-a-new-car/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Service Department Labour Rates</title>
		<description><![CDATA[To call or not to call &#8211; that is the question?  - submitted by Amina Claasen
I currently find myself in a Call Centre, doing Service follow up calls and Service and Mot reminders. The cost of Servicing and in particular, labour rates, is a main reason to be ‘Completely Dissatisfied&#8217; with the service received at [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/service-department-labour-rates/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Close, but no cigar!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The best insurance scam of the year, but then what happened&#8230;


The event took place in Charlotte, North Carolina.  A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then  insured them against, among other things, fire.
  
Within  a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company.
  
In [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/close-but-no-cigar/</link>
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		<title>Are used bikes being sold on the cheap?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Short-term profits are funding a long-term famine &#8211; Submitted by David MacPherson
 
Despite the recession, the motorcycle industry is currently doing very well. Volumes and profits are up, but the worrying thing is that one of the contributory factors to this upturn is actually a situation that may cause the industry to struggle in the longer term.
 
The [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/are-used-bikes-being-sold-on-the-cheap/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Budgets and business plans</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s possibly fair to say that 2008 has not been the easiest year for the motor trade and prospects for 2009 remain, at best, worryingly uncertain. Many dealerships are now approaching their year end and more than a few have no doubt been wondering what their annual accounts will look like. The temptation may be [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/budgets-and-business-plans/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>13 tips to help your cash flow with used cars, bikes and trucks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Businesses don&#8217;t go bust because they run out of profit,
they go bust because they run out of cash
Many used vehicle programmes fail to take the peaks and troughs of seasonality and depreciation into account. They work on a ‘one size fits all basis&#8217; and the industry just does not work like that. Here is a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/13-tips-to-help-your-cash-flow-with-used-cars-bikes-and-trucks/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Approved used car programmes</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you can&#8217;t sell used vehicles,
you won&#8217;t sell new vehicles
Most new vehicle manufacturers have their own version of an ‘approved used vehicle programme&#8217; and it&#8217;s not limited to cars either &#8211; trucks and bikes have their own versions.The question is, why do these programmes exist and do they make a difference to the franchise, the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/approved-used-car-programmes/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Adding value to vehicle service and repair</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Credit Crunch and the implosion of the Stock Market has put a big squeeze on the global economy with customers thinking twice about spending their hard-earned cash.
If people are not buying new vehicles, they must be keeping their existing ones for longer, which means that they need to get them serviced or repaired.
As we [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.jeff-smith.com/adding-value-to-vehicle-service-and-repair/</link>
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