AutoNation 2003 Annual Report Download - page 4

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Table of Contents
• Build a powerful brand in each of our local markets.
Our strategies are supported by our use of information technology. We have used our significant scale to become an industry leader in
marketing our stores and vehicle inventory via the Internet. By pursuing our strategies and leveraging information technology to enhance our
customer relationships, we hope to convince potential customers who live or work in our markets that an educated vehicle buying decision
cannot be made without considering our stores.
A key component of our strategy is to maximize the return on investment generated by the use of the free cash flow that our business
generates. We expect to use our free cash flow to make capital investments in our current business, to complete strategic dealership
acquisitions in our key markets and to repurchase our common stock pursuant to our Board-authorized share repurchase program. Our
capital allocation decisions will be based on such factors as the expected rate of return on our investment, the market price of our common
stock, the potential impact on our capital structure and our ability and willingness to complete strategic dealership acquisitions in our key
markets.
Deliver a Superior Customer Experience
Our goal is to deliver a superior customer experience at our stores. Our efforts to improve our customers’ experiences at our stores
include the following practices and initiatives in key areas of our business:
• Improving Customer Service: The success of our stores depends in significant part on our ability to deliver positive experiences
to our customers. We are continuing to develop and implement standardized customer-friendly sales and service processes based
on our stores’ demonstrated “best practices,” which we expect to improve the sales and service experiences of our customers and
position us to obtain significant repeat and referral business. We emphasize the importance of customer satisfaction to our key
store personnel by basing a portion of their compensation on the quality of customer service they provide in connection with vehicle
sales and service.
• Increasing Parts and Service Sales: Our goal is to develop long-term relationships with our customers so that they rely on us
for all of their vehicle service needs. Our key initiatives for our parts and service business are focused on optimizing our processes,
pricing and promotion. We are beginning to implement across all of our stores a standardized service process, which is designed to
ensure that we offer our customers the complete range of vehicle maintenance and repair services. We expect that our service
process will increase our customer-pay service and parts business. Our efforts at optimizing our pricing are directed toward
maintaining competitive pricing for commonly performed vehicle services and repairs for like brand vehicles within each of our
markets. Our promotional programs take advantage of our significant scale in our markets through the use of standardized
marketing communications with our customers, which are designed to market to our existing and potential customers the
complete range of vehicle maintenance and repair services. As a result of our significant scale, we believe we can communicate
more frequently and more effectively with our customers, which we believe sets us apart from our competitors.
• Increasing Finance, Insurance and Other Aftermarket Product Sales: We continue to improve our finance and insurance
business by using our standardized best operating practices across our store network. For example, our stores use our customer-
friendly electronic finance and insurance menu, which is designed to ensure that we offer our customers the complete range of
finance, insurance and other aftermarket products in a transparent manner. We offer our customers a wide variety of finance,
insurance and other aftermarket products such as extended warranty contracts, maintenance programs, theft deterrent systems
and various insurance products at competitive rates and prices. Additionally, we continue to focus on optimizing the mix of finance
sources available for our customers’ convenience.
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