In December 2016, Amir Alahwal called a Mercedes-Benz dealership that wasn't hiring and asked if he could come in anyway. He showed up in his high school prom suit, slicked back his hair, and put on a bow tie. By the end of the day, the store had created a receptionist job just for him. A decade later, he's using that same persistence to solve one of the biggest problems in fixed ops: customers who quietly stop coming back.
Some of the best ideas in a dealership start with someone who refuses to take no for an answer.
How Mercedes-Benz of Temecula Used Mobile Service to Win Back Customers
Today, Alahwal is director of development and customer experience at Mercedes-Benz of Temecula. Late in 2025, the store lost a six-figure after-sales loyalty bonus from Mercedes-Benz. To earn it, a dealership has to service each vehicle in its area at least once a year with a customer-pay repair order. Customers who skip a year count against the store, even if they've moved away.
On a tip from an NADA Academy classmate running more than 800 mobile repair orders a month, the store partnered with Curbee and launched its first mobile service van in December 2025. Then it texted every customer it hadn't seen in over a year.
The early skepticism: The service manager and shop foreman weren't convinced. One suggested mobile service might be better suited to fleets than retail customers.
The data that changed their minds:
Measure | Result |
|---|---|
September mobile appointments | 37, the store's best month, up from a previous high of 26 |
Mobile customers not seen in a year or more | 70% |
Longest-lapsed customer won back | Last seen in 2021 |
Gross retention on mobile Service A | 100%, versus a 5% to 10% discount in-store |
One customer had serviced her car at the store every year since buying it in 2014, then went silent in 2023. When the text arrived, she replied that she'd moved nearly 50 miles away. The store drove out to her anyway, and she left a four-star review saying she was "even more pleased" because she never had to leave her house.
"People like to manage things by feelings, and I think that's extremely dangerous. I'm not about feelings. I'll go straight to the data and prove it." Amir Alahwal, Mercedes-Benz of Temecula
Lessons for Dealers Launching a Mobile Service Program
Let the numbers make the case.
Adoption was slow at first, and the team's doubts were understandable. What turned skeptics into believers was pulling the repair orders and showing exactly how long those customers had been gone.
Read the four-star reviews closely.
That one review led Alahwal to dig into the customer's history, which revealed how loyalty programs can count customers against a store long after they've moved. Sometimes the most useful feedback comes from the review that isn't perfect.
Put the technician in front of the customer.
In a typical service visit, information passes from valet to advisor to technician and back. Mobile service removes those handoffs, and customers trust the person who's actually working on their car.
Look inside your own building first.
Before hiring a dedicated mobile technician, the store started with its tire and lube techs, and they earned many of those early five-star reviews. Alahwal believes nearly every dealership already has someone ready for the role.
Retention gets easier when the dealership goes to the customer instead of waiting for the customer to come back.
