Our co-founder Karen Rotberg busted a few aftersales myths in her AM’s webinar discussing OEM value service deals.

The webinar, in association with BookMyGarage, saw Karen address 121 live attendees (273 registrants) at the webinar hosted by AM’s contributing editor Tom Seymour on Thursday 25 September. She was joined by Andrew Boyle, group aftersales operations manager, at Johnsons Cars, and Hendy Group’s director of commercial operations, Mark Busby.

Traditionally, the franchised sector has struggled to attract or retain drivers of segment 2 and 3 vehicles relying on servicing newer vehicles to fill workshops but in a diminishing car parc and with the increase in EVs which require less servicing, that’s no longer viable.

 

Myth 1 – Franchised dealers are too expensive for drivers of older vehicles

Karen said: “It’s not the value servicing that’s an issue but the fact that consumers don’t see the offers.”

That’s where the likes of BookMyGarage comes in – to use its large online presence to place dealerships and their offers in front of consumers, at the right time when they’re in market, some of whom may not have contemplated the franchised network originally.

Attract new customers - 80% of bookings to the franchised sector were from conquest customers, not previously known to the dealer group. In the past 12-months, £101m worth of work has been made by customers using BookMyGarage with an average revenue return of 500%.

 

Myth 2 – Aftermarket aggregators represent a race to the bottom

Most users of the BookMyGarage platform make their booking choice according to location - 41% of users who change the sort order choose to do so by distance. Price is, of course, important with 34% making their choice using it as their criteria. A significant proportion (20%) are driven by availability which makes last-minute slots a potential revenue stream for franchised dealers – slots which may have otherwise gone unused. Users on BookMyGarage are predominantly concerned with finding a garage that they can trust and keep returning to for years, and due to the nature of this the platform is as such not a race to the bottom. In fact, often the cheapest prices are avoided in favour of the options with more 5* reviews.

 

Myth 3 – Unallocated labour hours could be sold at a reduced rate

Most dealers would rather sell an hour at a reduced price than leave the slot unfilled, but there was also some discussion in the webinar about the possibility of opening up 1 slot per day to fill last minute cancellations – as this slot is limited to just 1 booking per day, groups can consider charging a premium for this last minute urgent slot. The service remains transparent because customers can see the cost of taking up the offer of late availability or booking ahead at the regular price. However, for those customers for whom convenience is crucial, such as to fit into busy schedules, they may be willing to pay the premium. BookMyGarage provides partners with the tools and functionality to roll out the pricing strategies that work best for them.

 

Myth 4 – Older vehicle owners are not interested in the franchise experience

Renault Retail Group signed up with BookMyGarage at the start of the summer and are already benefitting from the exposure the platform provides and the incremental business that has followed from older vehicles outside of warranty. Once they have experienced the environment and the customer service, they are more likely to become advocates and amplify the dealership in reviews and ratings.

 

Myth 5 – AI will take the human interaction out of the transaction

Inevitably, AI has become a big focus for BookMyGarage as well as its garage partners and the franchised sector but for Karen, it’s about carefully deploying the technology to deliver efficiencies whilst ensuring information is accurate and reliable. In fact, BookMyGarage CEO Douglas Rotberg, who began his career as a Rolls-Royce apprentice and went onto run the biggest RR and Bentley workshop in Europe, before embarking on his career as an entrepreneur, has just completed an Oxford University course in AI to better understand how it can transform business and BookMyGarage are developing multiple AI initiatives to improve efficiencies, user experiences and personalisation, reporting for partners and more.