Aftermarket outshines dealers in customer satisfaction

The automotive aftermarket outperformed their dealer counterparts in most aspects of the customer experience, a new study reported.

When asked about their opinions about different parts of their service-related experience, the aftermarket received more answers of “very good” in five of the seven categories. Even in the two areas where dealers scored higher, it was only by a single percentage point.

The findings were reported in the 2021 Ontario Automotive Consumer Study from business advisory firm Deloitte.

When it came to overall service experience, 48 per cent of respondents said “very good” when grading the aftermarket. Meanwhile, 44 per cent said the same for dealers. They were also happier with the quality of service received from their aftermarket shop — 52 per cent for the aftermarket, compared to 48 per cent for dealers.

The aftermarket (48 per cent) was better at being clear about service-work explanations than dealers (41 per cent).

Customers were happier with the condition of vehicle on return (53 per cent said very good for the aftermarket compared to 52 per cent for dealers). Quality of communication during a service event was ranked higher for the aftermarket (45 per cent) compared to dealers (40 per cent).

There were two areas where customers gave a higher score of “very good” to dealers than the aftermarket. One was in professionalism (50 per cent for dealers, compared to 49 for the aftermarket) and the other was in the amount of communication during a service event (37 per cent for dealers; 36 per cent for the aftermarket).