How Do Digital Vehicle Inspections Build Trust?

How Digital Vehicle Inspections Build Trust With Auto Repair Customers

Consumers seem to have always had some mistrust of the auto repair service industry. Unfortunately, not much data has been collected over the years measuring their level of trust or mistrust.

Some of the only widely available authoritative research comes from a late 2016 AAA phone survey of 1,001 U.S. drivers. It concluded that two out of three drivers did not generally trust auto repair shops.

Since this data is now over half a decade old, we wanted to find out how much these numbers have changed and if trust has increased or decreased over time.

Therefore, we conducted a much larger consumer research study that included 8,274 U.S. drivers and asked how much they generally trust auto repair service and maintenance shops.

We Found That Only 8% Of The Drivers Surveyed Did Not Trust Auto Repair Service And Maintenance Shops At All.

The Remaining 92% Was Split, With 43% Trusting Auto Repair Shops A Lot And 49% Only Trusting Them Somewhat.

This is great news for the industry as trust clearly seems to have increased over time. Although we cannot say with absolute certainty why trust has increased so much, we can speculate. It’s logical to assume that the increase in trust has come from the industry’s evolution over time, with so many shop owners investing more resources in training, coaching, 20 Group involvement, networking, etc., all of which in turn leads to many more professionally run shops.

In addition, as new technology and software such as Digital Vehicle Inspections have become more mainstream and more drivers experience it, repair shops using these technologies are likely to see their trust factors increase.

That prospect is also supported by our additional data. Out of the 2,000 U.S. drivers surveyed, we found that slightly over 1 out of every 5 (21%) knew what Digital Vehicle Inspections were.

Beyond that, 45% of surveyed drivers reported that they would trust a repair shop’s recommendations a lot more if they were sent texts and/or emailed images of recommended repairs. That would give them a chance to see and understand exactly what is wrong with their vehicle before deciding to approve a repair.

Not only do Digital Vehicle inspections build trust, but they also increase your bottom line by selling more work and saving your shop time creating a win-win for your shop and your customers.

To provide some additional expert insight into the power of Digital Vehicle Inspections, we asked Chris Cloutier, multi-shop owner of Golden Rule Auto Care, tech guru, and owner of industry-leading, cloud-based, digital service solutions platform, autoflow.com, to weigh in.

Digital Vehicle Inspections are great for creating that transparent process that has been proven time and time again. For new shops wanting to get into the digital realm, they need to realize that software alone is not going to solve their problems of doing a good inspection. Shops need to understand the value of presenting that vehicle health check to their customers and make sure they have a solid process in place for inspecting vehicles.

Just as we would want from a doctor, we owe it to our customers to show them what is going on with their vehicles and then recommend what it takes to keep them in tip-top shape. A digital experience makes the process so much easier and smoother, and it is something that our customers are very comfortable with in this day and age.

To learn more about how autoflow.com can help empower your team and modernize your customer experience with technology like Digital Vehicle Inspections and much more, visit them at autoflow.com

Download Cracking the Code Automotive To Learn More About Your Shop’s Customers

& Access Mail Shark’s Latest Consumer Research And Insights Report.