1 in 3 Canadian vehicle owners admit to not keeping up on their maintenance. It’s not that they don’t want to maintain their vehicles, they simply just don’t remember. People still forget their anniversary or family members' birthdays, and those are once a year on the same day! So, it’s understandable that vehicle maintenance can sometimes fall through the cracks. The good news is, if you help car owners out and make vehicle maintenance a bit easier, they will reward you with their business.
Helping car owners keep up with their maintenance is a substantial revenue opportunity. We found that if you make vehicle maintenance easier:
Providing an easier service experience not only means more service revenue by customers visiting you more, but it will also improve the reputation of your dealership or shop.
Researching and buying a car has gone digital, yet maintenance still involves window stickers and recall notifications in the mail. We found that 2 out of 3 Canadians still track their maintenance manually. While this could mean an organized binder of service records, it’s more common that the customer has a pile of receipts somewhere or is trusting themselves to remember. It’s not surprising to think that customers aren’t keeping up with their maintenance when they’re still relying on paper invoices or their own memory to know what work has been done.
Making maintenance easier means helping customers understand what they’ve done, what they might need next and when they need to come and see you. Ensure your customers know you’re keeping comprehensive records of their maintenance or even share their complete maintenance history after a service visit. You can even be proactive with your customers on their maintenance needs by providing them service reminders and recall alerts before they contact you for an appointment. If a customer knows you’re actively helping them maintain their vehicle you’ll make their maintenance easier, they’ll have a better maintenance experience, and they’ll trust you more and bring you more business.