Customer Service review house, Judge Services, has revealed that franchised dealers who fail to sell cars with service plans are losing one-in-five customers to independent garages.
Great news for the independent garages, but alarm bells should be ringing for the franchised dealer network. Particularly when the data coming out of order to handover communications platform, AutoBuzz, suggests that the Service Plan is among the most engaged topics during the ‘gap’ between order and handover.
Selling a Service Plan along with a new car offers significant benefits to the retailer, not just from an increased revenue perspective but also from a retention and lifetime value point of view. A missed sale can have long-term impacts on automotive businesses.
It should be of interest, therefore, to the retail network that an emerging marketplace for the sale of service plans, accessories, GAP, paint protection, and other profitable products and services has been created in the least likely stage of the buying journey.
It’s easy to label the gap from confirmed order to handover as ‘dead’ time.
However, a massive 93% of customers engage with dealer-driven content while they wait for their car proving that the appetite exists but many retailers and sales teams just don’t have the data at their fingertips to trigger conversations around the likes of service plans and accessories.
Additionally, did you know that a further 67% of customers are interested in adding accessories to their new car purchase two months into the order to handover wait?
Who really cares?
No clear responsibility lines are drawn from the manufacturer or the franchised dealer group. The agency model has the potential to further blur these boundaries.
A massive 93% of customers engage with dealer-driven content while they wait for their car proving that the appetite exists but many retailers and sales teams just don’t have the data at their fingertips to trigger conversations around the likes of service plans and accessories.
However, as is the case with other areas of the buying journey, consistent, high-quality communication can ease the anxiety associated with this time and flip it into an exciting marketplace where customers want to engage with additional purchase opportunities.
And, if the sales team isn’t incentivised or motivated to do it (in fairness the volumes make it nearly impossible to do in a meaningful way anyway), a scalable and digital solution is the only way forward.
If you’re looking to offer customers a better experience, as they wait for their new car to arrive, in order to minimise negative feedback and increase lifetime value with products and services like a Service Plan, let us take you through the AutoBuzz software today.
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