Lyft, Uber and their drivers are ripe for fixed ops picking, expert says

Before the coronavirus pandemic, ride-hail drivers would log hundreds if not a thousand or more miles per week. The wear-and-tear meant quicker-than-usual oil changes, tire rotations, scheduled maintenance and parts in need of repair or replacement.

That, of course, was before the crisis cut the traditional ride-hail business by more than half. But it hasn't been all decline for the industry giants.

Some Uber and Lyft drivers have shifted to meal-delivery services, for example. Uber says its Uber Eats business is up more than 50 percent in the COVID-19 era. And industry analysts expect plenty of work ahead for "gig drivers."

With those recent developments and the prospect of life eventually getting back to normal, the ride-sharing world remains a rich opportunity for dealership service departments to target.

Over the years, most dealership service departments shied away from Uber and Lyft drivers. The hesitation to court ride-hail drivers may have been due to unfamiliarity with their needs and older paradigms of how and when service departments operate, said Harry Campbell, founder of industry website TheRideShareGuy.com. But not only is their business out there to capture, the ride-hail companies want it.

Lyft already operates maintenance hubs in partnership with Pep Boys locations and CarMax service facilities while also partnering with OpenBay to help drivers find service options. In 2018, Lyft committed $100 million to building 35 of its own Driver Service Centers, which offer maintenance services at discounted rates. The first opened in March 2019.

"That's a costly project that's going to take years," Campbell says. "But if a dealer wanted to create that service facility, they could do it tonight by leveraging what they already have."

That is: repair services, parking areas, wash and detail services, customer lounges, restrooms and WiFi. All are things that will draw drivers on a 12-hour shift into a dealership's orbit.

Uber had 160,000 U.S. drivers in 2014, more than 750,000 in 2018 and in early 2020, before the pandemic, had an estimated 1.5 million drivers, according to the company and Campbell's statistics. That soaring demand has created more familiarity with the retail side opportunities of ride-hail, and significant service revenue opportunities have followed.

Brian Allan, vice president of strategic partnerships at HyreCar, says that while cars are ripe for innovation because they're only used 5 percent of the time, dealerships are too.

"Fixed operations infrastructure is sitting there 24 hours a day but typically only being used for 10," Allan says.

Platforms such as HyreCar and DriveItAway, which enable dealers to rent out idle, aged or dedicated inventory to ride-hail drivers, have had a front seat for watching dealers service an increasing volume of ride-hail drivers.

It was the norm, Allan says, that dealerships wouldn't be open late and certainly not 24 hours. But there's now a dedicated group of customers willing to pay extra for additional service options that don't cost dealers much to provide.

It's easy, he says, for dealers to test the waters by starting small.

"If you're going to try being open late, start with Thursday nights," Allan says.

Thursdays, he says, are when many ride-hail drivers are resolving any cleaning or maintenance issues before the heaviest travel days — Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Being open late extends the working hours of the shop, adding more paid work rather than displacing existing customers, Allan says. The only extra costs are staff time and electricity. Allan, formerly general manager at Galpin Ford in Los Angeles, also says that some staffers actually like working late shifts.

"They often live far away from urban centers and commuting might be easier at off-peak hours," he says.

Outreach is still key and that's a thornier area.

Allan and Campbell recommend social media targeting via Instagram and particularly Facebook — which has ride-hail driver groups that can be directly targeted. Campbell also recommends talking with driver communities on Reddit.

Platforms such as HyreCar and DriveItAway help with marketing but, Campbell says, there's no reason dealers can't do it on their own.

"The more you look at a driver's needs and how they overlap with the services you provide," Campbell says, "the more you can start catering to ride-share drivers."