Taking the pain out of workshop bills

The digitalisation of the car buying journey accelerated during the Covid lockdowns, as click and collect and home delivery became the only routes to market when showrooms were forced to close their doors to customers.

As a result dealers now offer greater omnichannel solutions empowering consumers to choose just how much of their car buying journey they want to conduct online.

However, this digital experience typically stalls when cars reach the workshop. This is where analogue solutions remain in play, especially when it comes to settling hefty unplanned bills using credit cards.

Only 50% of millennials, aged from 25-40 years old, own a credit card, furthermore 90% never plan to. That’s a major demographic which feels the pain when faced with an unbudgeted workshop bill, with payment inevitably coming out of savings.

For these customers, credit cards equate to racking up hefty high interest-bearing debt, when the rest of their outgoings are settled on a planned monthly basis, whether it be PCPs, utility bills, gym membership, mobile phones or streaming services.

So how can aftersales departments better serve this increasingly debit dependent customer base?

Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) schemes, enabling customers to spread the costs of purchases over an agreed period.

When used in aftersales, digital payments eliminate the need to handle a customer’s information on site. Instead, service advisors send a one-off secure payment link to customers via email or SMS for them to settle however they like – this leverages other technology like Google Pay, Apple Pay and Open Banking.

This increased choice is good for customers, empowering them to pay remotely – an important safety consideration for those wishing to reduce physical contact where possible.

Digital payments provide a simple, secure and convenient alternative to relying solely on in-person or over the phone card transactions, giving the customer the level of flexibility and convenience they already enjoy as consumers in other retail sectors.

Automating payments also saves the dealership time. We estimate this equates to one month per service advisor over the course of a year, based on two minutes per customer and 500 customers per month.

This frees up service advisors to use their time more efficiently, finally making reception desk queues a thing of the past.

With the front-end of the car buying experience already benefitting from multiple digital touchpoints, now’s the time to consider extending that digital journey into the workshop.

Jack Allman is the chief commercial officer of Bumper