Service retention automation
Service reminders that bring 31 percent more cars back to the dealer
A dealer group was losing service customers to independents after the warranty period. Reminders were a monthly batch letter and a call centre that reached one in five. We built a workflow that times reminders to each vehicle’s real mileage and MOT date, books slots over WhatsApp, and turns recall notices into revenue.
- Client
- Multi-brand dealer group
- Region
- United Kingdom
- Scale
- 14 sites, 900 employees
- Timeline
- 8 weeks, piloted at 3 sites then rolled out
Representative engagement. Client details are anonymised and figures reflect typical outcomes from comparable deployments.
What the client got
0%
More service bookings from existing customers
Measured across all 14 sites against the prior year.
0%
Of bookings made outside call centre hours
Customers book when they think of it, not when the phones are open.
0.0x
Recall completion rate
Recalls are bundled with visits customers already wanted.
The bottlenecks
Bottleneck 1
Reminders ignored the vehicle
Every customer got a letter twelve months after their last service. Drivers covering 30,000 miles a year and those covering 4,000 got the same message at the same time.
Bottleneck 2
Booking meant a phone call
The call centre worked office hours. Customers who wanted to book at 9pm went to a national chain with online booking.
Bottleneck 3
Recalls were a compliance task
Manufacturer recall campaigns were worked from spreadsheets. Completion rates were low and nobody used the visit to sell anything else.
What we built
Step 1
Per-vehicle timing
The workflow combines DMS service history, MOT expiry from the DVLA, and mileage from connected-car data or the last visit to predict each vehicle’s next service window. Reminders go out when the car needs them.
Step 2
Conversational booking
Reminders arrive by WhatsApp or SMS with live slot availability at the customer’s preferred site. An AI agent handles rescheduling, courtesy car requests and “what does a major service include” questions, and writes the booking to the DMS.
Step 3
Recall and campaign bundling
Open recalls and manufacturer campaigns are attached to the next booking automatically. Service advisors see the bundle and a suggested upsell before the customer arrives.
Step 4
No-show and lapse recovery
Missed bookings and customers past their predicted window enter a recovery sequence with an incentive the group controls per site.
The automation workflow
Service retention flow
From vehicle data to completed workshop visit
Questions clients ask about this engagement
Does the AI agent quote prices?
It quotes fixed-price menu services from the group’s price list. Anything diagnostic is booked as an inspection and priced by the advisor.
What about customers without a mobile number?
They receive email reminders with a booking link, and a small residual group still gets a letter. Every channel writes to the same DMS booking.
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Have a similar bottleneck?
Tell us how the work happens today. We will show you the workflow we would build and prototype it on your own process.