• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Dealer Marketing Magazine

Dealer Marketing Magazine

Expert Automotive Knowledge At Your Fingertips

  • Expert Panel
  • Marketing
    • Advertising
    • Content Marketing
    • Direct Marketing
    • eCommerce
    • Internet Marketing
    • Lead Generation
    • Paid Search
    • SEO
    • Social Media
    • Websites
  • Customer Experience
    • AI
    • CRM
    • Customer Service
    • Loyalty and Retention
  • Dealership Business
    • Business Development
    • Dealership Security
    • Digital Retailing
    • Finance & Insurance
    • Fixed Ops
    • Inventory Management
    • Pre-Owned
    • Recruitment & Training
    • Sales Training
    • Technology Solutions
  • Podcasts
  • About Us

How Service Departments Can Prepare for the Future by Embracing Disruptive Technology

August 31, 2018 by David Gauze

service departm

Dealership service departments are on the verge of seeing transformative changes, and those that do not recognize these emerging patterns may face dramatic losses in revenues and missed opportunities.

Currently, new-vehicle dealerships handle only about 30% of service work performed across the country, which represents an enormous missed opportunity not only for additional service revenue, but for building loyalty and long-term customers.

This market share is likely to decrease even more as the auto service industry faces tremendous disruption as smart car tech, connected cars, and the Internet of Things (IoT) change how every automobile will be serviced in the future.

Maintaining or increasing their dealerships’ share of the service business will be dependent on dealers understanding these changes.

Having personnel in service departments who understand collision repair, how to diagnose mechanical problems, and how to replace parts won’t even give you a seat at the table, however. More important will be understanding how IoT will play an increasingly large role in automobile service.

Sensors inside vehicles will be able to communicate directly with the manufacturer or the dealership, which can determine real-time status of components, and diagnose potential failures before they occur—with preventive maintenance therefore becoming much more precise and data-driven.

And with the prospect of self-driving cars, it’s a very realistic scenario that a car would be able to detect such a potential failure, call up the service department, and schedule an appointment for itself, then drive itself to the appointment while the car’s owner is at work.

Scheduling maintenance and taking one’s car in for service will become a much more transparent process for the owner. Service departments will need to be tied in with this emerging technology, and those that offer this capability early on will be the ones that gain a competitive edge.

“Let’s open up the hood and have a look” will be replaced with sophisticated user interfaces that allow the service department to know precisely what needs to be done before the car even arrives at the shop. From the consumer’s perspective, unexpected costs and car repair sticker shock will be things of the past.

Dealers offering this level of predictive service and deep connectivity with each automobile will give themselves a tremendous edge over third-party repair shops.

Mechanics will have much more information at hand through a combination of IoT-enabled networks, internal sensors, and even visibility into the source of each replaced part through blockchain-enabled supply chain innovations.

The latter, for example, is especially important in understanding whether a faulty part is factory original, came from an aftermarket supplier, a junkyard, or is a counterfeit part from a substandard source.

That tie-in will naturally promote a higher level of customer loyalty, as automobiles will be sold with a built-in connection to the service department and continuous diagnosis, smart alerts, and opportunities for proactive maintenance.

In the foreseeable future, automobiles will be more like smartphones, with the vehicle itself being defined less by the steel, and more as a platform for connected apps and services.


IoT-enabled automobiles will enable dealerships to offer a whole new category of services, including predictive maintenance packages, maintenance alerts, and predictive analytics that analyze not only each individual automobile’s internal mechanics, but that of all other cars that are connected to the network as well.

David Gauze is advertising manager of Auto Body Toolmart, a company which has been supplying equipment, paint booths, and tools to auto shops for 30 years.

  • About
  • Latest Posts

David Gauze

Latest posts by David Gauze

  • How Service Departments Can Prepare for the Future by Embracing Disruptive Technology - August 31, 2018

80

SHARES
Share on Facebook
Tweet
Follow us
Save
Share
Share
Share
Share
Share
Share
Share
Share
Custom
Custom
Custom
Custom
Custom

Filed Under: Dealership Business, Fixed Ops, Technology Solutions, What's New Tagged With: auto dealership marketing, disruptive technology, Internet of Things, IoT, maintenance, self-driving cars, service department, technology

Explore

advertising AI artificial intelligence auto dealer marketing auto dealership marketing automotive marketing big data CFPB compliance consumer behavior Cox Automotive CRM customer experience customer retention customer service data dealership business dealership websites digital marketing DMS f&i facebook finance and insurance google inventory management lead generation marketing millennials mobile mobile marketing NADA online reviews personalization pre-owned vehicles sales sales leads search engine optimization seo service department social media social media marketing technology training vendors video marketing

Primary Sidebar

Stay Informed

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Explore a topic

Upcoming Webinar: 11 March 2021

E-mail Newsletter

Join Our Vendor Community

Register Here

Share This

LINKEDIN

Recently Published

  • Digital Retail: 4 Steps for Setting Your Dealership up for Success
  • NEW PODCAST EPISODE: Experimarketing – The “Quantum5” Leap
  • The Calm After the Storm
  • NEW PODCAST EPISODE: Leader of the Pack
  • In Honor Of Our Godfather of Automotive Marketing: Ralph Paglia

Podcast: Inside Auto with Ilana Shabtay

Podcast: Carearing with Laurie Halter

TWITTER FEED

Tweets by Dealer_Mark_Mag

Footer

Quick Links

About Us
Weekly Newsletter Sign Up
Expert Panel
Industry Events
Join Our Vendor Community
Advertising

Follow us

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Site Search

Copyright © 2021 · Dealer Marketing Magazine