Automobile dealerships lose 87% of their customer within five years with the highest defection rate occurring during the 3^rd and 4^th year of ownership.

Less than 25% of vehicle buyers return to the dealership for the first service even when it was free.  When customers aren’t made comfortable with where to go, who to see, or what to expect they return to where they recently serviced.

Properly introduce customers to the service department and merely ask them to return for service, 50% will return for their first service.

A study for a major car manufacturer revealed that more than 90% of customers continue to use the service facility where they had the 1^st service done.  

Customers are not obliged to tell you if they are unhappy or if they plan to defect to the competition.  More than 65% of your customers are lost through poor customer handling.  It's imperative that you have a timely mechanism in place to seek out and identify customers intending to defect to the competition.

Customers say they want and expect personal follow-up (salesperson or advisor not 3^rd party) soon after the purchase or service experience.

Research from both Toyota and GM reveal that when properly maintaining a customer’s vehicle that more than 70% of them will give the dealership the opportunity to sell them another vehicle.

In a loyalty study for a major manufacturer, J. D. Power found that repeat customers spent an average of $1200 more on a vehicle purchase.

Approximately 50% of unhappy dealership customers never complain about dissatisfaction.  Because a non-confrontational method for customers to communicate dissatisfaction to top management was unavailable, this 50% simply felt no one cared and defected to the competition.

A large portion of dissatisfied customers, more than 70%, will do business with you again if you are able to resolve the complaint. 

This goes up to 95% if resolved on the spot and the facts prove that these customers are more loyal than those who never complained are. 

Even 20% of those not resolved satisfactorily will buy again. 

Approximately 75% of vehicle owners get their vehicles maintained where they buy their tires. 

With increasingly longer oil change intervals, the service market is moving from LOF to tire rotation as the maintenance hook.

Customer contact alone without processes that address customer problems or concerns in a timely fashion are more damaging than no contact at all.  Any dissatisfied customers contacted may become even more dissatisfied when it appears that no process was available to resolve their problem.

The following results were revealed to the question of "why do those who have been regular customers over a longer period of time suddenly stop patronizing a business?"

9% Left over price

18% moved, died, found a new relationship

82% because of indifference or discourtesy, poor service, or an unadjusted complaint. 

More than 55% because of one person and one incident

Dealership management rarely measures customer defections and seldom makes an effort to prevent these defections. Middle management doesn't seem to understand the relationship between customer-loyalty on the one hand and cash flow and profits on the other.  These managers see no need to invest time or money in keeping your customers returning to buy new vehicles, service their existing vehicles, and referring their friends and family.  They just want to spend vast sums of your money attempting to attract new customers.

Satisfied Customers are four (4) times more likely to purchase another vehicle from your dealership.

98% of "Completely Satisfied" customers said they would “Definitely Recommend” the dealership. 

Owners that rated the dealers overall performance of service as “Excellent,” 86% said they would “Definitely Return” to the Dealer

41% who rated the dealers performance as “Good” would return

Only 4% would return to dealers they rated as having “Poor” service.

Ford Motor Company surveyed 40,000 customers.  The 48% response rate revealed that customers wanted the following from their servicing experience.

Strong relationship with Service Advisor

Early warning on needed repairs

Choices

Plain Language

One stop shopping

Reasonable Competitive Pricing

Safety

Implementing and maintaining a process to properly introduce car buyers to the service department can increase fixed operations gross profits significantly.  It’s not so difficult for a 125 car per month dealership to realize $1,000,000 additional revenue from such a simple process.  The hard part is measuring, accountability, and the ongoing implementation.