How Will I Know When He Really Loves Me? Getting the most from your service experience investment.

One of the most impactful aspects of the vehicle ownership experience is service, since it occurs repeatedly and way more frequently than new car purchases.  Customers also have more choices:  multiple dealerships, chain and independent parts and repair shops compete for every service, repair and parts purchase decision.  Where customers ultimately service their vehicle has been proven to be a major factor in re-purchase loyalty, at both the dealer and brand level.  That means it has a significant impact on future sales, so it’s worth investing to improve the service experience.

But where should dealers and OEMs make these investments to get the biggest return?  Intuitively, there are many areas that would benefit:  reduce wait time, offer loaner vehicles, invest in technology, improve customer communications (i.e. text messaging), provide more transparent pricing… the list goes on.  But resources are finite and priorities must be established.

According to the Gartner research, in 2014 companies spent about 20% of their marketing budgets to support and improve customer experience, but many of those efforts had limited success and ROI flatlined.  And by 2017, half the investment companies spend on product development will be diverted to improving customer experience.  What is the best source of information on which to base these investment decisions to make sure your investment doesn’t flatline?

Most companies use a simple tool:  the survey.  Typically, an email survey is sent after every service visit.  It’s usually the same survey, with the same screening questions, and a list of attributes to rate on a scale of 1-10 or similar.  This is often perceived as spam, and can feel more like an interrogation than a genuine request for feedback.  It’s a one-way conversation, with no value to the customer.  The more service visits and repeated surveys, the worse this feels.  Therefore the most loyal, repeat customers are getting the worst experience!  The survey scores become the key metric (tied to dealer financial incentives in many cases), even though they may not be actionable and the survey process itself is probably annoying the very customers it's intending to help.

There’s a better way.  What if you had a group of owners, willing to share their feedback and opinions with you on an ongoing basis?  And all they wanted in return was for you to share back information about how you are using their input to improve?  There are several types of customer communities that offer this benefit.   To learn more, read Why online communities are growing – and how you can get more from them.

Communities are not the end of the survey as we know it, but a way to supplement existing data though authentic customer engagement.  Let’s prioritize our service experience investments with confidence to get the highest returns.  It’s a win/win for the industry and our customers.