As affordability concerns continue to reshape dealership operations, Piazza Auto Group is reverting to the basics.
During the latest episode of Service Drive, Dave Rogers, Fixed Operations Director at Piazza Auto Group, said the group has spent 2026 reinforcing technician productivity standards, advisor accountability and customer communication processes across its stores. The strategy, he says, is already producing measurable gains.
Technician productivity
According to Rogers, the company launched a new initiative in January that requires service managers to set annual goals with technicians and service advisors. He explains that leadership set a minimum target that no technician should fall below 2,000 flat-rate hours per year. Managers can now track this weekly and monthly, stepping in early when employees fall behind.
The initiative has driven stronger buy-in than Rogers anticipated, with technicians now actively hunting for additional work, asking managers for PDIs, and volunteering to stay late. Stores that embraced the initiative most aggressively, Roger states, are reporting year-over-year productivity gains of 8% to 12%.
He also believes that dealerships lost sight of operational fundamentals in recent years while chasing new technologies and trends.
“I think we’ve taken the eye off the ball for the last few years, chasing all the shiny objects.”
MPI completion & closing rates
The dealership group is also pushing for 100% completion and presentation rates on multipoint inspections (MPI). Rogers said modern service technology now allows managers to monitor MPI performance in real time, eliminating many of the process gaps that existed during the paper-based era.
But completing the inspection is only half the job.
Advisors must consistently communicate findings to customers, which is why Piazza frames the process internally as a ‘health check’ that delivers factual vehicle information rather than a sales pitch.
However, Rogers pushes back on the notion that busy service lanes make thorough inspections unrealistic.
“If you make it part of your process and it becomes the first thing you do on a car, I don’t think it’s that much of a challenge.”
When customers decline recommended work, particularly safety-related items like brakes and tires, Piazza doesn’t let them walk without a second conversation. Instead, an assistant service manager or service manager steps in to explain the recommendation and walk through pricing, much like a traditional sales-floor TO.
The stores leaning hardest into that process are seeing closing ratios on declined work climb above 50%. Across the group, Rogers tracks advisor closing rates closely, with the average falling between 30% and 35% and top performers reaching 40% to 45%.”
Training programs
Piazza’s investment in advisor development runs through an online university built with its training partner, Steve Shaw, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The platform now houses roughly 80 courses spanning personality training, empathy, communication and sales development.
To re-energize participation, Rogers recently restructured the program into three certification levels, giving advisors a clearer progression path and sharper accountability targets. Video inspections are another area where Rogers is rethinking conventional wisdom.
The group averages 70% to 75% video usage across stores, with some Mazda locations hitting 90% to 95%. But Rogers started questioning whether longer videos still hold customer attention, especially on low-mileage vehicles with little to report.
“The problem is the technicians don’t want to do videos on a car with 5,000 miles,” he said. “It’s a waste of their time.”
His solution is to go shorter, experimenting with 30- to 45-second TikTok-style clips focused exclusively on red-flag items, aiming to make it a video customers will actually watch rather than one that checks a box.
Customers lean on repair financing
Affordability pressures are showing up across every brand segment Rogers oversees, from Hyundai to Porsche and Mercedes-Benz.
Sunbit financing usage, he claims, has climbed as more customers opt to spread repair costs rather than pay out of pocket.
The vehicles coming through Piazza’s service lanes reflect the broader economic reality, with average mileage now between 75,000 and 80,000. Even so, customer-pay performance has held steady.
Rogers credits that stability to a straightforward philosophy of recommending what the vehicle needs and skipping what it doesn’t.
“We’re not trying to flush your brain out,” he said. “We prioritize what needs to be done now, what can wait, and what to keep an eye on.”
Service departments remain critical profit centers
As new-vehicle sales remain inconsistent, Rogers said dealership leadership has once again shifted more attention toward fixed operations profitability.
He compares today’s environment to the post-2008 financial crisis period, when dealer principals and general managers became increasingly focused on absorption rates and service performance.
For Rogers, the current environment reinforces a simple lesson: dealerships that consistently execute the fundamentals still outperform those seeking shortcuts.
As warranty revenue declines across the industry, new-vehicle sales remain inconsistent, pushing dealer principals and general managers to look more closely at fixed operations than they have in years.
Rogers compares today’s environment to the post-2008 financial crisis period, when dealer principals and general managers became increasingly focused on absorption rates and service performance.
For Piazza, the answer to that pressure isn’t a new technology or a trending strategy. It is the work Rogers has been preaching all year, including setting clear expectations, holding people accountable, communicating with customers, and executing the basics every single time. The dealerships doing that, he says, are the ones pulling ahead.
