People Business Serves Dove Buick Cadillac through 50 Years of Selling Cars

Dove Dealership - The dealership that Dee Dove moved to west 10th Street in 1967 still carries his name on the parking lot sign and in many other areas throughout the building. While Dee was instrumental in running the business, Rob said his mother, Lois, was involved in the promotional part of the business for many years and still fills that role some today. "She was my dad's great woman who was always involved in the big picture of the business," said Dove. Rob calls his wife, Trisha, a retired English teacher, his "great woman." The couple's two daughters are also teachers, one music and the other English. "I'm glad my two girls are teachers," said Dove. "They followed after their mother."

In the late 1970s, car dealership owner Dee Dove asked his son a deceptively tough question, "What kind of business are we in?" Having returned home to work for his dad after earning a college degree and serving a stint as assistant sales manager at what was then the second largest Buick dealership in the nation in Dallas, Rob searched his mind for the fantastic response, but could only provide the obvious answer, "We're in the car business." Of course, that answer didn't meet with approval from the elder Dove. Neither did Rob's answers that followed of: "We're in the service business; body shop business; we sell and service new and used automobiles." Dee countered finally with his sage response, "Son, we're in the people business."

"He meant that if you've got good people working for you, then you'll have a great dealership," said Rob.

Sales Force - Dove Buick Cadillac Inc. sales team is pictured left to right on the showroom floor Leonard Nicholson, Marty Steinert, Rick Bussman, and owner Rob Dove. Steinert and Bussman have been with the dealership for more than two decades. "You can quote prices all day long over the Internet, but most of the time in this business that person still has to be belly to belly and eyeball to eyeball to complete the process," said Dove.

That philosophical lesson sticks with the younger Dove every day, nearly four years after the death of his dad and business mentor, who started the Dove dealership five decades ago.

As Dove Buick Cadillac Inc. celebrates 50 years in business this month, Rob is also reminded about other sage lessons he learned from Dee about customer care.

"You'll be working here as long as I'm proud of you, but if I'm not proud of you, then you won't be working here anymore," Rob remembers his dad saying. "Proud means you are working hard to take care of the customer and that's exactly how we still operate today," said Rob.

Quality customer care has made Dove the oldest new automobile dealership in Great Bend. DeVere Dove, Jr., better known as Dee, bought a Buick, Studebaker, and Opel dealership in 1957, located on the corner of 12th Street and Kansas. Opel and Studebaker were discontinued in 1959, but Dove continued selling Buicks, even moving to a second location near 10th and Washington in the early 1960s. In 1967, Dee negotiated to sell Oldsmobile and Cadillac along with Buick and moved the business to its current location, 4217 10th Street.

Quality Service - Dove service manager Steve Karst (right) works with technician Gary Smolik to complete paperwork on a service job. Karst helped his father run a filling station in Russell for many years before joining Dove nearly 10 years ago. "Steve is fantastic," said Dove, "He learned in the service environment how to work the right way with people." Still, Dove Buick Cadillac Inc. does do some business online at http://www.deedove.com/en_US.

After advancing from a sales position to sales manager in the mid-1980s, Rob signed a lease-purchase agreement with Dee in the late 1980s and took over the dealership in 1990, upon his father's retirement. He also paid off the loan that year to become owner of the dealership. Instead of giving his son a business, Dee taught Rob how to run a business.

"People who knew Dee Dove would never think that he would just gift the business to me," said Rob. "I paid for it. I learned from the ground up, no holds barred, you get it done. If I screwed up, I got my butt chewed, just like everybody else. If I did well, I got pats on the back, just like everybody else.

"My dad believed in me starting at the bottom. Growing up, I was pushing broom, lubing cars and washing cars. I did a lot of the grunt work. He also had a quarter of ground and I spent a lot of my time out there raising crops and cattle."

Garage Efficiency - Dove has a total of 29 bays for service and body work. Rob said providing entrance and exit doors into each bay was the most expensive way to build, but it has resulted in efficiency for moving cars in and out during service repairs. Additionally, each service technician has two bays to work with, making him twice as productive. That way, when he's waiting on a part for one vehicle, he can be servicing the other vehicle, Dove explained. Dee learned about the automobile dealership business from his father, DeVere Dove, Sr., who owned Dove Motors, Chrysler-Plymouth, Holton, Kan.

That work ethic has carried Rob forward in maintaining the strong business that his father started. Yes, business has changed somewhat, especially with the Internet. For instance, 15 percent of Dove Cadillac sales the last two years have come from the Phoenix area. Still, much of the business remains similar with Dove servicing customers within a 60-mile radius of Great Bend. Many of those regional sales areas have even strengthened, Dove said, as other dealerships close their doors.

Today, Dove maintains 22 full-time and five part-time workers for the sales, service, body shop, parts and business departments. Employees tend to stick with Dove too. Business manager Jim Phillips has been with Dove 31 years; service technicians average a dozen years at the dealership; and service manager Steve Karst has been at his job for a decade. Dove shows commitment to employees by providing proper training for everyone on staff. Last year alone, the business spent an average of $2,500 training employees in their respective areas.

Longtime Employee - Business manager Jim Phillips has been with Dove since 1976. "Jim is my right-hand man," said Dove. "He keeps everything accounted for and so much more."

Because of that commitment to employees, Dove has a stellar reputation for service and, in fact, does a brisk business in other GM warranty work that isn't Buick, Cadillac or Oldsmobile. The trust customers place on Dove for repair work has consistently helped in making Dove's fixed operation profitable in a business that typically loses money in fixed coverage. When the variable, or sales side, doesn't have to cover overhead for fixed costs, it makes for a healthy business, explained Dove.

"Dad always told me, if that back there is doing good and making money, then you are going to be fine up front," remembered Rob. "But if you don't have it back there, then you don't have it up front. It always has to be the service department before the sales department."

That formula has proven to be a model of success for Dove. Since General Motors introduced its Customer Satisfaction Index about 20 years ago, Dove has consistently ranked in the top 2 percent in its zone compared to other dealerships.

Paper Pusher - Dove office manager June Ellis keeps the paperwork moving in and out of the dealership, ensuring the office runs as efficient as the service area.

"We're not the star child and we're not number one, but we are consistently high with customer satisfaction," said Dove. "We're the ones who take care of our customers year after year and time after time. The big boys are just too busy watching people come in and go out."

Dove said in the nation's heartland there are fewer peaks and valleys in the auto sales business where national trends tend to ripple out before they reach this area. Metropolitan dealerships sell more cars, but here you know your customers and that's the greatest difference in a business where purchased vehicles still need to be serviced, he said. While he doesn't compete with the volume of large dealerships, Dove does say that there has never been a year in 50 where the father-to-son business has been unprofitable.

"In 50 years, yes, we've made mistakes, everybody does, but we've kept it going," said Dove "We're profitable and our people and customers are happy. It helps me believe we're doing all right. Besides just looking at the black ink on the bottom line, we're doing well in those other areas that go into a running a business."