LAS VEGAS — Mobile Productivity Inc. (MPi), a provider of profitability tools for auto dealer service departments, announced Monday that Mercedes-Benz USA has endorsed the MPi World Class Inspection (WCI) system to Mercedes-Benz dealers throughout the U.S.

Dealers using the system are performing a better inspection and doing a superior job of explaining needed repairs to the customer, realizing benefits that average between $100 and $125 in additional needed repairs per vehicle inspection, a substantial increase in profit for the service department.

Several Mercedes-Benz dealers across the U.S. have been enjoying the benefits of the system for some time. According to Michael Devan, general manager of Mercedes-Benz of Pompano Beach, Fla., the MPi WCI program has been very beneficial both for the dealership and its customers.

“Before MPi, we already had a high degree of inspections, but were leaving money on the table by not identifying all of the legitimately needed work, or not having the customer buy it when we did find it. We are now able to hold our technicians and service advisors accountable for doing a good job. It has dramatically improved our process. This combined with the ‘Know Your Vehicle’ presentation to the customer, which includes pictures and an explanation in ‘layman’s’ terms, has enabled us to double our monthly inspection revenue and take better care of our customers,” Devan said.

Commenting on the endorsement, Les Silver, MPi Chairman and CEO stated, “We are proud to be recognized by Mercedes-BenzUSA as a tool to help dealers significantly improve their service and parts operation. Today, the real key for survival is to market and sell all legitimately needed parts and service work to existing customers. Dealers using the World Class Inspection system uniformly see a significant increase in recommendations per vehicle inspection; which translates to healthy increases in gross profit.”

The WCI system has proven to significantly improve a dealership’s service and parts operation in terms of business growth, CSI and customer handling. The system increases the sale of legitimately needed service work by implementing a better executed vehicle inspection process. The system also uses customer communication tools that provide a detailed estimate of work needed and involve the customer in the decision making process.

WCI includes the MPi EDGE tool, an electronic dealership growth solution that allows a dealership to measure the execution of the process and rank their performance (world class, gold, silver, and bronze) and the performance of their staff using predefined criteria.

MPi has developed and tested a process implementation strategy to help dealerships use the WCI system. It includes a 45-day launch process which features workshops to help design the process, written processes, document word tracks and a complete “turn-key” playbook. There is also comprehensive training with Web-based classes for all personnel, onsite launch training, follow-up training over a 90-day period, and vehicle breakdown reports by area of vehicle and mileage. The program also has a follow-up process, which includes an account development manager assigned to every account. The dealership can monitor performance in real- time using MPi’s software, participate in a bi-weekly account review conference call and use dispatch specialists for in-dealership assistance when needed.

"WCI has become an invaluable tool for us to monitor the performance of our technicians and service advisors. We have created a high level of consistency in how we inspect every vehicle. Our clients are very impressed with the ‘Know Your Vehicle’ report. Some clients have said that it is the best piece of information we have ever given them about their vehicle. The declined repair reports have allowed my shop manager to coordinate client follow-up with our business development center. Our staff and our clients are very enthusiastic about this product,” commented Chris Tokarz, service director with Mercedes-Benz of White Plains, N.Y.

WCI pricing is based on dealership size and number of users. A dealership can receive a no-cost price quote and business case by contacting MPI. For more information, call 1-800-997-1674 ext. 6, or visit www.mpifix.com.