Service departments are more important than ever. Getting customers into service drives is imperative to dealers looking to keep their businesses afloat during uncertain times. That’s why it’s important to listen to consumer needs.

What is most important to consumers when considering service providers?

#1- Value
#2- Quality
#3- Convenience
#4- Trust

Service coupons and loyalty programs increased from 23% to 28% in importance to consumers from 2015 to 2018.

What’s important to dealerships?

• 64.4% of dealers state that customer retention is the primary concern.
• 93.1% of dealers feel that the service experience is more important than repair.
• 85.1% of dealerships feel that their current systems do not provide a superior ownership experience.

Why are service centers increasingly more important than the sales department? 54% of drivers don’t want the burden of a new car payment. They seem to prefer to keep and service their current car. 40% of drivers want to keep their vehicle for at least 100k miles. 23% of drivers want to keep their vehicle for at least 200k miles. The average age of a car today is 11.4 years. Are we getting those cars in for service? Are they going somewhere else? We should be servicing all vehicles.

77% of vehicles need service or parts, but only 30% of customers are visiting dealerships to get their cars serviced. What’s the problem? The low service visit rates are partly due to customers believing that dealership service departments are more expensive than independent repair shops, when in reality, the average cost of routine maintenance at a dealership is comparable to third-party providers.

What can dealerships do?

• Provide cost estimates during the scheduling process to alleviate the misconception of higher costs
• Create a transparent and trustworthy customer ownership experience to increase the odds of getting customers back for service appointments

The research shows price transparency is a significant way for dealers to deliver a high-quality ownership experience that keeps customers coming back to the service drive.

3 out of every 4 vehicles today need service and more and more of those customers are finding their service center of choice online. Mobile marketing alone saw 98% growth year over year. How can dealerships make an impact online?

• Giving out service tips about tires and maintenance on dealership social media pages boosts a dealership’s reputation online and brings in more service revenue
• Having a fully-responsive, mobile friendly website service content
• Making sure your website is fast and Google-friendly
• Using targeted search engine marketing to make it easier to be found in paid searches
• Keeping current and relevant service specials
• Enabling a full online store with payments, orders, shipping and tracking

Perhaps most importantly, video content has become the most sought after content on the internet. Using video will increase your search engine footprint and build consumer trust. 65% of customers who took their vehicle in for service first heard about the service center they visited through video marketing.

Don’t have the resources to create your own video content? FixedOPS Marketing has an affordable and effective solution with the PERFORMANCE and PRESTIGE products. See the demo here: https://demo.fixedopsmarketing.com/demo-wynn/

*Sources: Cox Automotive, AAA, Car Care Council, NADA