Door-to-door service in car garages

Door-to-door seems to be an attractive add-on for some customers, an ‘extra’ service that may determine where to repair a vehicle. Are garages willing to pick up vehicles from customers and deliver them back after repairs?

Door-to-door service – which car garages practice it?

Less than half of the surveyed European independent garages offer the service. It’s mostly car garages in Hungary and Poland. In developing markets such as Romania and Croatia, the percentage of door-to-door service providers is lower, but an upward trend is noticeable.

‘In my experience, in most cases, the door-to-door service is introduced due to an external request of, for example, a fleet operator, and not due to an internal desire of the garage owner to expand its offer. And it is one of the mobility package services to offer in addition to substitute means of transportation (a courtesy car, a bicycle, a cab). Door-to-door is an underestimated service in the secondary market, yet it saves the customer’s time – an additional cost of having a car serviced on site. The loss of time (and often money) can be minimised by offering other alternatives, such as door-to-door service. Of course, have it as part of the cost of the entire service or as an extra paid service. Anyway, it will be profitable for the customer. In a longer perspective – to the garage as well. That’s why the statistic presented in the article that nearly 50% of garages offer door-to-door service makes one happy. It’s nice to have such a service offered by vehicle manufacturers’ service centres, why not make it a competitive service offered by car garages in the independent market.’ – said Robert Dzierżanowski, head of service concept development at Robert Bosch.

Which garages offer door-to-door service?

Customers of large garages are much more likely to get their car collected and delivered after repair. Such garages employ more employees who often don’t just repair vehicles but exclusively take on customer service. Therefore, it’s not much of a problem for them to find a driver and set aside time to go to the customer.

This service is the domain of garages from smaller towns rather than large metropolitan areas, which have a lot of alternative forms of transportation. There, implementing door-to-door service can only be justified by the desire to provide higher level of comfort for the customer.

There is another possible reason why fewer garages in larger cities offer this service. If your customers come from all parts of the town, it is difficult to estimate the time required for such a service. An employee could be stuck in a traffic jam for long periods of time.

The chart below presents the data about the Polish market, which can act as an example for European markets.

Research methodology

The survey which served as the source for the claims in this article was conducted by MotoFocus.eu, in the form of an online interview among car repair shops in the following European countries: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, Croatia, Hungary, Italy. In total, over 1655 individuals took part in the survey.