By Jason Unrau
Fixed Ops Journal teamed up with DealerRater in April 2019 to ask customers a question:
“The last time you took your vehicle to the dealership for service, did you buy additional work that the service adviser recommended?”
That’s a pretty simple question, right? Of the 11,456 respondents, 31 percent of mass-market vehicle owners and 33 percent of luxury vehicle owners said that they had. It shows that more than two-thirds of those asked refused additional work.
The poll as it’s reported leaves me asking more questions. Are customers who weren’t asked to purchase an upsell excluded from the survey, and how do customers qualify the term ‘additional work’?
Forgive me if I seem skeptical of a rather subjective poll that seems open for interpretation by respondents. Perhaps the researchers didn’t want to ask leading questions, but the statistics appear to paint a picture of apprehensive customers unwilling to bite on upsells that aren’t required work. I have a different takeaway than their image of advisors who peddle extra work on customers for profit.