A prominent global trend in the retail automotive industry is the growing focus and investment by OEM manufacturers in Aftersales Customer Experience.

For some time now the global OEM Manufacturer, their local market distributor, and the franchised retail dealer network have closely monitored their customer retention, and as the retail dealer is the central contact point for the customer, measured the retail dealer’s customer service performance via a range of metrics broadly known as CSI (Customer Service Index).

After the initial vehicle point of sale, it is the role of Aftersales (Service & Parts) departments to manage the customer relationship and the customer’s emotional connection to the vehicle brand for the following years of vehicle ownership. It is therefore not a surprise that automotive OEM Manufacturers have identified the strong association between a customer’s good Aftersales experience, and their often emotional decision to purchase their next new vehicle of the same brand.

In summary, Aftersales Customer Experience plays an important role in the overall customer retention strategy for all automotive OEM manufacturers.

Recently, our Global Parts Solutions team presented a session on Aftersales Customer Experience at the 2nd Annual South East Asia Automotive Technology Summit.

Presenting to over a 150 delegates, representing industry manufacturers from across the ASEAN region, Pentana Solutions Global OEM Engagement Manager , David Whitney spoke of the often forgotten need for increased availability of genuine replacement parts, and how poor parts availability can have a negative impact on the customer’s aftersales experience, resulting in a diminished perception of the brand.

David encouraged the audience to consider implementing a Retail Inventory Management strategy, to assist their retail dealer network in the daily management of maintaining an adequate supply of genuine replacement parts on the retail dealer shelf, to immediately meet expected customer demand. The visibility and control available to the OEM manufacturer with the implementation of a Retail Inventory Management strategy is the only true mechanism to ensure that the retail dealer network is consistently supporting the customer and the vehicle brand at or above the mandated benchmark.

With the high availability of genuine replacement parts, in addition to offering great customer service, the retail dealer, and local market distributor will also experience a range of associated benefits, such as greater service facility productivity, less lost sales, reduced freight costs, less wasted inventory and a more predictable demand.

Pentana Solutions provide a Retail Inventory Management (RIM) service called PartsEye to over 3,500 retail dealerships across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific. In partnership with several global OEM manufacturers, our PartsEye planners manage the day to day management of the retail dealer’s genuine parts inventory. Focused on widening the breadth and depth of genuine replacement parts on the retail dealer shelf, PartsEye also provides a series of management and performance reporting to govern constant improvement initiatives at each retail dealer location.