Retention of service customers is a key measure of a dealership's fixed ops performance.

A new report offers hope for dealers facing service tech shortages, but only if dealerships are prepared to change the way they treat their employees.

In late April, DealerRater polled for 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.

"You get what you pay for" is a slogan easily summarizes the eternal debate over the best way for a dealership to pay its fixed ops employees, especially service technicians and advisers and parts-counter people.

One of every 10 dealership customers who schedules a service appointment must wait to see a service adviser upon arrival, a new survey suggests.

An easy way a dealership can start to build loyalty and retention among service customers is for salespeople to introduce car and truck buyers to the service department when the vehicle is delivered. But a new survey of consumers suggests that such handoffs occur less than half the time.

How will dealerships find, hire, train and keep the technicians they need to staff their service bays, amid a growing shortage of, and cutthroat competition from other industries for, tech talent?

A new survey of 35,000 dealership service technicians concludes that techs are unhappy with their jobs, and especially with their flat-rate pay plans.