1 of 3 service customers buys additional work - survey

About one third of dealership service customers agree to additional repair or maintenance work when a service adviser recommends it, a survey suggests.

In late April, DealerRater polled for Fixed Ops Journal more than 11,000 consumers who had visited a new-vehicle dealership recently. Among those who had taken their car or truck in for service, 31 percent said they bought additional work proposed by the adviser.

Customers of luxury-brand dealerships were slightly more likely to approve work suggested by the adviser (33 percent) than those visiting dealerships selling mass-market brands (31 percent), according to the survey.

Service advisers' compensation is often determined in part by how many additional services and products they sell to customers who come to the dealership's shop for other reasons.

Such sales can be a source of contention between some advisers who claim they feel pressured by their bosses to persuade customers to buy work they don't require immediately, and dealership managers who say that recommending service work that customers may not know they need is part of the adviser's job and a way to keep customers' vehicles safe.