Motor Trader The award-winning and longest running UK magazine for car retailing professionals. Your first stop for News, Jobs and Reports for the motor industry.
Franchised dealers missed out on over £120m worth of revenue by failing to sell red and amber work identified during customer vehicle health checks during the first quarter of 2015.
New data, from BTC, the vehicle health check supplier, revealed the average UK franchised dealer failed to sell around £25,169 of red work in the first three months of the year. Across the UK’s 4,900 strong dealer network this equates to a total of £123m in lost sales.
BTC said the figure, which is down from £143m in the same quarter last year, will still raise concerns that independents and rapid-fit operators are being allowed to benefit from missed sales opportunities.
The data was gathered using autoVHC, BTC’s electronic vehicle health check system, which recorded information from a sample of 500 UK dealers. It revealed dealers sold an average of just 57% of urgent red work – such as severely worn or illegal tyres and faulty brakes. This equated to a total of £12.5m of missed sales across the sample.
A total of £24.1m worth of amber work was also identified by the sample dealers in Q1 but just 17.2% was converted.
“It’s good to see more red work being converted but dealers are still letting too much slip away. When a customer decides not to have the work done there and then they’re usually looking at having it carried out by an independent outfit. This means dealers face losing not only the immediate sale but also the customer’s long term business,” said BTC chief executive Guy Allman.
“There is also a duty of care aspect to all of this. If the customer decides against having the work done, they’re potentially being allowed to drive off the forecourt in a car that is in a dangerous or illegal condition.”