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A report on how customers interact with automotive service and repair businesses reveals customers are more likely to be disgruntled on certain days of the week, and also highlights what ticks people off the most.
Customer experience specialists Customer Radar looked at feedback from over 25,000 customers from more than 100 businesses in the New Zealand automotive service and repairs industry across 2021 to inform the report.
The report showed Saturday, Sunday and Monday were the worst days for negative customer feedback, with Net Promoter Scores (NPS) – which is the measure for customer feedback – dropping by up to 10 per cent across these days.
CEO and founder of Customer Radar, Mat Wylie, says when it comes to those bad experiences, two of the most complained about issues are communication (58%) and wait times (30%).
“Nobody wants to be held up by their mechanic. But this actually provides an opportunity to grow your business by providing a better service for customers who have had negative experiences elsewhere,” Mat says.
While customers are walking away less satisfied on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, they are still spending an estimated $1.9 billion on those days annually – presenting both a risk and a great opportunity.
The Customer Radar report also found that last year’s lockdowns added pressure, with the average customer satisfaction score across the automotive industry dropping by three per cent at the beginning of August’s lockdown, and down a further two per cent in September, recovering slightly as the country moved through alert levels.
While many businesses were in survival mode, there were also businesses that embraced the opportunity to evolve and set themselves up for future growth.
“Communication is one of the risk areas for customer service so why not make that a focus area for your business for the remainder of 2022?” Mat says.
“Things like service with a smile, manners, let customers know there’s a wait time – and give them a realistic estimate by text messages, phone call or emails to alert customers to disruptions that will impact on their service experience.
“With Omicron past its peak and a sense of getting back to normalcy, there is an opportunity to learn from the customer service mistakes and pitfalls over the pandemic and for businesses to experience real growth through improved customer service.”
Keyword: Revealed: This is what customers hate about getting their car serviced and repaired