A large proportion of the research for the 2011 Castrol Professional Car Service and Repair Trend Tracker report is an extensive survey of motorists. We have run some elements of this consumer survey since 1994, interviewing 1,000 motorists every month.

For the 2011 Trend Tracker, Lake Research carried out the consumer interviews and supplied the results as raw data. Truly, a ‘research anoraks’ dream! Digging around the new data, we were able to extract, for the first time, information about marques with smaller car parcs including: Audi, BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Land Rover, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, SEAT, Skoda, and Suzuki.

Of course we cannot yet establish trends for these marques, or the accuracy of the measurements - that will take a few years - but the initial findings did raise some interesting questions about what drives business back to franchised workshops.

Our consumer questions relating to the whole range of servicing, maintenance and repair(SMR) give us ‘service retention’ for the various market providers in terms of volume (rather than value). For the 23 makes of cars in the survey with adequate SMR samples, the straight average franchised dealership retention worked out as 23.7% in 2010.

However, for the individual marques, the attraction of franchised dealerships as SMR providers doesn’t always have a single, logical explanation.

In fact, the average age of a marque’s car parc is the most influential factor on service retention. For example, long-lasting Land Rover vehicles had one of the oldest parcs in the survey and consequently the service retention of Land Rover dealers was poor.

The relationship between car parc age and service retention is not surprising given that franchised retailers lose SMR business quite quickly to the independent sector as cars get older. However there were a sufficient number of anomalies to suggest other factors are at work.

You might suspect that the retailers of prestige cars retain more SMR custom than retailers of more humble marques. The results confirm that this is true to an extent, although it could be equally true that owners of hi-tech, prestige cars want the best and they are willing to pay for it.

One survey question asked of motorists who hadn’t yet had their car serviced about where they will go when the service is due – and why. For those likely to go to the retailer for their make of car, some 31% valued the expertise and competence of the dealer. But 38% will use their dealer because their car is still under warranty.

The only other areas mentioned were cost/value for money, courtesy car, convenience and customer service. None of these rated above ten per cent of responses.

So it seems that warranty is another driver of dealership service business even though motorists appear confused about warranty contracts. Either way, longer new car warranties clearly provide franchise retailers with a competitive advantage and captive warranty work.

Written by Trend Tracker director Chris Oakham, this piece first appeared his column in the subscription monthly Auto Retail Bulletin in July 2011.(See auto-retail.co.uk for subscription details.)

Chris Oakham

Trend Tracker Limited

0870 421 4350

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