2023 Data Says: Car service centers should improve on these three things

Throughout 2023, we asked car owners about how they felt after getting their cars taken care of at their dealership service centers. This data spans many different brands, across multiple dealers in the Philippines, and various models. 

For each, we asked car owners who’ve recently had their vehicles serviced to rate their satisfaction after completion. The criteria include: 

• Additional costs/Cost transparency 
• Cleanliness and comfort of centers 
• Convenience and location of centers 
• Ease of obtaining an appointment 
• Friendliness and service quality of staff 
• Quality of work completed 
• Work completed on schedule 

Out of five, with one being the lowest and five being the highest, we tallied our results and arrived at an average rating. 

For the top three aspects of car servicing in 2023, customers rated staff friendliness and quality the highest, with an average rating of 4.63 stars out of five. Next is the ease of obtaining an appointment which is at 4.6 stars out of five. Rounding out the top three is the cleanliness of the facility, which averaged 4.48 out of five stars across multiple brands and dealers in the Philippines. What the data shows, at least for 2023 and given our sample size, is that dealers are taking care of their facilities, hiring the right people, and facilitating service appointment booking promptly and properly. 

Right in the middle of our results is the convenience and location of the dealership. Most successful brands in the country will have a bunch of dealerships in well-placed locations around the country to service customers. Generally speaking, service centers are within the reach of many of the car owners who were able to rate, but the result is skewed towards the more established brands out there given the volume and the number of dealerships available to the big players in the Philippines. 

You could say that other younger brands pulled down the average score a bit, though we feel that this could change in the future should the other players in the market bring more dealers into their folds. 

Based on the data, we see that dealers in the Philippines—in a general sense, would benefit from working on three aspects of their service. One is the quality of work completed, the second is work completed on schedule, and the last is additional costs/cost transparency. 

Quality of Work Completed: 4.45 out of five stars 

While the average score here doesn’t dip below four stars, it’s still a cause for concern if the hit rate of a dealership drops below about 90 percent satisfaction rating. You could say that more than one out of 10 people who leave dealerships aren’t satisfied with the quality of the service. However, the reality is that some customers are leaving service centers less than content. 

Work Completed on Schedule: 4.44 out of five stars 

Getting work done right takes time, and balancing efficiency and quality can be challenging and in 2023, this is the second-worst average among the categories customers rated. Service speed can vary greatly between the type of car and the type of work that needs to be done. 

Perhaps a dealer is quite popular in the area and finds itself full of customers daily. Perhaps there is a bit of inefficiency with the service teams of some dealerships, or perhaps expectation setting was a bit off when the service advisor consulted with his client. Either that, or more work needed to be done, and it took another round of wrenching to get the car released within the day. Either that or some dealers out there need to bump up their efficiency or perhaps manage their clients’ expectations better. Either way, quality also takes time, and it is interesting to see that the two criteria in this service are so closely related and ranked together. 

The worst is Additional Costs/Cost Transparency: 4.2 out of five stars 

It seems that a good number of customers tend to be overwhelmed by the final servicing costs of their vehicles. On one hand, you could say that customers are getting more for their one visit to their local service center. On the other, it could be an issue of transparency with the client at the time that the service advisor. Another way of looking at this is that service centers are doing some extra work, which results in additional costs that lead to a bigger bill at checkout. 

The average score across all seven categories for 2023 is 4.62 out of five. That number becomes a lot more meaningful if you compare it to the 2022 average rating which his 4.53 out of five. There is a good amount of improvement from two years ago to a year ago. 

While a perfect average doesn’t seem possible, we feel that if dealers across the country adopt a more transparent practice, and balance efficiency and quality, then it’s assured that more customers will walk away happy and award a five-star rating for their service. 

As for other recommendations, dealerships should continue to keep their staff friendly, book their clients efficiently and quickly, and keep their facilities neat.