Wednesday, 9 December 2009

The Warranty Group claims to be seeing a "groundswell of interest" in service plans as dealers search for new products to bolster profitability in the downturn.

Little attention

Ian Simpson, sales and marketing director, said dealers that have paid little attention to service plans in the past are looking at them afresh.

The Warranty Group trained nearly 300 product "champions" at dealerships in the third quarter of 2009 to boost sales of service plans.

Successful trial

The champion approach is being promoted following a successful trial in late 2008 that saw a claimed sales increase of around 400 per cent in the dealerships where it was tried.

"Each champion is a specialist who has responsibility for promoting service plans within their dealership.

"Where champions are in place, we are seeing penetration into used car buyers of up to 80 per cent and, even where figures this high are not being achieved, the results are still very worthwhile for dealers."

Simpson added that, like warranties, service plans were a product that had a high degree of appeal to customers during tough economic times.