Dealers are failing to collect enough information for their aftersales records and could be missing out on opportunities, according to a new report.
Marketing Delivery looked at data from more than 50,000 visits by customers to franchised dealer workshops during December. It found that around a third of customer records were not complete and did not contain important information such as their email and mobile contacts, or when their next service was due or MOT expired.
Keeping records on customers’ vehicles and sending out reminders is a valuable way of retaining custom, and keeping an up to date database can help you grow your business. You should also ensure you have a good road risks insurance policy in place if your staff are required to drive customers’ vehicles in the course of their work.
The Marketing Delivery report said that the missing data capture varied widely between dealerships. In the best cases, only one per cent was missing but in the worst, 28 per cent was missing meaning the likelihood of following up the customer was severely minimised.
Emails were most likely to be missed off the records and were not stored in 17 per cent of cases over all.
Jeremy Evans, managing director of Marketing Delivery, told Motor Trader: “There’s room for improvement at all dealer groups when it comes to aftersales data quality. Even among the very best customer databases, our research suggests that 20 per cent of records are lacking some pertinent aftersales data.”
When it came to service data, the best performers only failed to capture one per cent for their records, but the figure rose to 28 per cent in the worst case.
