Dealer service departments are just beginning to understand all the value they can get from connected car technology. They’re seeing that connected car tech puts them at the forefront of change and helps them compete more effectively for service business, which in turn can drive more sales volume by making the overall dealership experience more enjoyable for their customers.
Connecting cars essentially means facilitating communication of data from a vehicle to a dealerships central fleet management platform, like Dealerware.
You have more opportunity than ever to explore the benefits of connected car technology. WardsAuto reports that more than 80% of new vehicles in 2021 will come standard with connected car capabilities and that number is expected to soon reach 100%.
The data that these connected vehicles send back to fleet management platforms can help service managers or fixed ops directors understand exactly how each of their fleet vehicles is being utilized.
Do most customers need a loaner for a day or a week? Do they drive more or less than 100 miles during the contract? Does that indicate an opportunity to improve on customer service by offering pickup and delivery? Would you get your cars back sooner if you did?
All these questions can be answered with basic vehicle usage data.
Sure, you can manually record mileage and length-of-loan data and crunch the numbers yourself. But connected car technology saves you the time, and it gives you access to that data and much more at the level of individual vehicles, or from a total-fleet view.
Dealerware leads the market in empowering dealership service departments to unlock and draw insights from fleet data.
The business intelligence our platform provides can simplify the loaner process for the dealership and contribute to a significantly faster and more enjoyable experience for customers.
Getting comfortable using connected car technology and fleet management tools to draw insights from fleet data can also prepare dealers to adapt more quickly to challenges.
For example, a connected fleet gives dealers the ability to monitor important vehicle status information like the health of various systems – battery and oil life are particularly important for fleet uptime – and even keep track of the exact location of their vehicles.
With this data, service directors can prevent batteries going flat on their loaners unexpectedly (leading to painfully slow customer service), can keep their vehicles in better health, and can simply get customers into loaners faster just by knowing where the cars sit on the lot.
Data on fuel levels can help service departments better understand how often they’re refueling vehicles when customers return them on empty, then take steps to recover those costs and save employee time.
Tracking mileage from a central connected car platform can help service directors keep their fleet within courtesy vehicle program limits, and make sure they flip vehicles out for CPO sales at the right moment to maximize the dealership’s profit opportunity.
In situations where a vehicle has not been returned on time, the dealership can even use connected car services to track the vehicle’s exact location and let customers know they’ll be picking up their loaner and dropping off the customer’s repaired or serviced car. Or, in the extreme situation that a loaner vehicle is stolen, connected car services help dealerships work with authorities to recover their assets – ask us how we know!
Dealerware has several resources available to help you identify ways you can improve and expand your courtesy vehicle program. Check out our new Insights to Action playbook here, or read our report on J.D. Power findings to learn about the most impactful parts of the service experience.
