Poor customer service could make franchised dealerships lose out on big business to aftermarket auto shops for vehicle service, found J.D. Power.
Customers who use both dealerships and aftermarket providers make up about 21 per cent of the business that rakes in $1.5-billion in annual potential revenue for service providers.
In its 2015 Canadian Customer Service Index Long-Term Study, J.D. Power surveyed 11,000 Canadians who own a four to twelve-year-old vehicle. The result is they are overall more satisfied with the service they get from an aftermarket shop than from a dealer.
Aftermarket shop providers have been excelling at customer service for years, said J.D. Ney, Manager of the Canadian automotive practice at J.D. Power, in an interview with Canadian auto dealer. The good news is the gap between aftermarket shop customer satisfaction and that from dealerships is shrinking each year, said Ney.
And dealers boast many advantages that can help them grab that lucrative chunk of service business from the aftermarket, said Ney.
According to the J.D. Power survey, dealers are more likely than service providers to perform a multi-point inspection on the vehicle —which contributes greatly to customer satisfaction. The other advantage is dealers are more likely to know the vehicle’s service history, and can therefore make more informed service recommendations.
Lexus and Volkswagen dealerships came in the top three for customer satisfaction on the service side, scoring 809 and 772 points respectively.
A dealership’s attitude towards customer service likely attributes to the gap, said Ney.
Dealers always have a steady stream of customers coming in for service, so they aren’t worried about losing out on business. That’s unlike aftermarket auto shops, where every piece of business that comes through the door is a retail sale, said Ney.
But if dealers want to retain their customers and prevent them from going to an aftermarket provider, it all comes down to providing consistent customer service.
There’s an opportunity for service advisors to ensure technicians are performing vehicle walkarounds and ensuring they hit customer timelines, said Ney.
“The role of the service advisor is not just to be another mechanic that stands in the front,” he said.
What advisors can do is educate the customers about the service they received so they come away with a better understanding of the costs, and feel like they weren’t ripped off, Ney added.
“If you have a great advisor that’s doing their job at educating the customers, and if that customer at least walks away with more knowledge than they had when they walked in, then they leave with a higher degree of satisfaction,” said Ney.
