23 June 2014

It’s story time this week. One relative of mine and one good friend have been car shopping, and each started the process in the service departments of their franchised retailers. Both experiences share some aspects, but differ in others.

First off, the relative. After a text from a newly appointed franchised dealer for his make of car, introducing themselves, he thought he’d take his car (which was about to run out of warranty) in for a check because it was making an odd noise.

To cut a long story short, the work was carried out under warranty without any trouble, but after the service department put him in touch with the sales department for a trade-in price, he’s now seriously considering a (nearly) new car.

The second story is about a friend who suffered such bad customer service in her franchised retailer’s aftersales department that she almost immediately traded her car in at a different retailer, despite claiming she “dearly loved” the vehicle in question.

The point is obvious; aftersales departments are vital to the whole franchised retail business. Get it right and customer retention is assured, get it wrong and… well, just don’t get it wrong.

And if you want to find out about the latest consumer behaviour in aftersales, then Auto Retail Network is running a one-day seminar on 10 September to discuss this any a host of other topics surrounding aftersales. 

Tristan Young

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Tags: aftersales, bad buying experiences, Blog, good buying experiences