Recent research findings show more than half of Canadian consumers are willing to wait for their new vehicle to be delivered, rather than insisting on buying from inventory. This begs the question on how this shift in expectations might be playing out among auto service customers.
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AndrewRoss@IndieGarage.ca
Back in 2018, JD Power research in the U.S. showed that 65% of people waited for their car to be serviced. it was also reported around the same time that people who waited for their car spent, on average, less.
I do think there’s something to that, but common sense suggests that it’s not the waiting that determines the spend, but the spend – or size of the repair – that determines whether one is going to wait or not.
So while every job is different and every customer has their own response to the timeframe required for repairs, there is a real sea change in the overall consumer expectations in terms of requiring instant or same-day-service.
This is not to say that every consumer is happy to be told that due to parts availability or shop capacity, their car may not be ready for two or three days. But everything I have seen in both research and anecdotally points to at least a grudging acceptance of this reality.
That same willingness to wait seems to showing up on the new car front, too. Recent data from DesRosiers Automotive Consultants shows that Canadian buyers are much more willing to wait to drive their new wheels.
With its roots in pandemic-driven shortages – in which many new car lots were bare of inventory – the rise in build-to-order (BTO) has continued. Certainly Tesla buyers are accustomed to this delayed gratification, waiting for years in some cases, but this phenomenon is also rising among more mainstream brands.
The DAC research showed that Canadian vehicle purchasers are willing to wait some time to take delivery of their new vehicle. Indeed, only 10.1% of consumers noted a willingness to wait less than a week, while 55.7% said they would be willing to wait more than a month.
More than twenty percent of consumers (22.6%) noted that they would be willing to wait more than three months.
And it’s not just Canadian consumers. The DAC data closely aligns with recent findings by Deloitte research that showed 48 percent of United States consumers believe it would be acceptable to wait three to 12 weeks for delivery of their next vehicle if it meant they got exactly what they want.
Dealers surveyed by DAC believe that some form of BTO is here to stay. When asked about their outlook for sales in 2030, dealers stated that they expect 45.3% of sales at that time to be BTO – with traditional inventory sales at 54.7%.
“Consumers are clearly willing to wait a reasonable amount of time to take delivery of their desired vehicle,” comments Andrew King, managing partner at DAC. “Assuming supply chains are working efficiently and vehicles can be delivered in a timely manner, extensive on-the-ground inventory does not appear to be a prerequisite for success in meeting consumer demand.”
Certainly, that’s good news for dealers, who will be able to keep on-hand inventories lower by choice, rather than by necessity.
Of course the aftermarket was affected by shortages acutely during the pandemic too, and while the situation has improved markedly since, there are still some lingering affects on auto service.
Looking back to August 2021, IMR Automotive Research surveyed U.S. shops, and provides a clue to the roots of this shift in expectations.
According to that report, 74.3% of shops were asking their customers to wait “a little longer” for an appointment to bring their vehicle in for service or repair. The majority of shops with 1 – 3 bays (85.7%) were asking customers to wait “a little longer” for an appointment, compared to shops with 4 – 7 bays (73.5%) and shops with 8+ bays (66.7%). Shop location matters as well. Urban shops (86.7%) were asking customers to wait “a little longer,” compared to suburban shops (59.5%) and rural shops (74.1%).
This rings true for both my personal experience in Canada and conversations wth shop owners.
The lingering effect of this supply/capacity shortage is a forced discipline among shops and consumers regarding auto service.
And it might just have provided strong, organized shops with an opportunity to schedule service more efficiently and effectively, without the same degree of customer blowback as might previously been the case pre-pandemic, when more customers were more insistent on immediate service.
Continued shortages across all parts of people’s lives have affected consumer expectations in general. Certainly from the aspect of a continual flow of headlines about shortages and waiting for everything from dinner reservations to prescriptions, consumers have been conditioned to expect to wait for most everything.
There’s certainly a lot to unpack in this regard, and not every customer is willing or able to wait days or weeks for service, but those who are able to may be more willing than ever to wait for appointments and to leave their car a bit longer.
Smart shops should take advantage of this flexibility to build their quality of auto service and keep workloads more balanced, for a smoother revenue picture and a better work environment.
When people are buying a car whether new or used, most people have the luxury of waiting for it to be delivered as they usually have a safe drivable car they already own.
Now with auto repair customers many times the folks do not have this benefit as their car is broken.
A great solution that is not mentioned in this article is “courtesy Cars”. They are fantastic at taking the stress off both the consumer and the auto shop.