Dealers are missing out on “lucrative” aftersales opportunities because they do not contact customers after the sale of the car
That’s the key finding of DMS specialist CDK Global, which surveyed 9,000 car buyers across Europe and found that 35% of them never near from their car dealership once the car is sold.
Consumers are least likely to hear from the dealership again in Denmark (41%), followed by Ireland (38%), and the UK (36%).
In Italy 34% of consumers never heard from their dealer again, this figure was 33% in the Netherlands.
The best communication was from Spain, with 28% of respondents never hearing from their dealer again.
Of the 65% of respondents that did receive regular follow-up from their dealers, 58% gave the communication from their dealer a 4/5 satisfaction rating or above. This means that in general, when consumers did recieve communication the standard was good.
It also found that 10% of the information received by owners from dealers is irrelevant and that 43% of owners do not return to the point of sale to get their car serviced
According to the survey less than 6% of dealers are using social media and apps to communicate to their customers.
“We have felt for some time that automotive retailers are not realising the full potential of the aftersales market, especially across Europe.
To explore this more, and to give us and global dealerships insight into the aftersales market, we commissioned a survey to dig deeper into buyer trends in Europe as well as in China and the UAE,” said Neil Packham, president of CDK Global International.
“This is part of our ongoing strategy to connect the automotive market, helping retailers take advantage of technological innovation, deep consumer insight and intelligence around future trends, in order to help them continue to thrive in a rapidly shifting and highly competitive marketplace.”
The survey was commissioned by CDK Global and conducted by Syno International in August and September 2019.
It was conducted across nine countries – United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, China and the United Arab Emirates. 9,107 people were surveyed in total.