Electric vehicle After-Sales Study 2024

Segmentation criteria:

• Demographics (age, gender, income)
• Vehicle (make, registration number, new/used purchase, place of purchase, company vs. private car, winter tyres vs. all-season tyres)
• Driving habits (kilometres driven per year and day of the week, mileage)
• Charging behaviour (charging locations, frequencies, occasions)
• Workshop or service type (safety-orientated, technology-orientated, workshop avoider)

Workshop visit:

• Workshop type
• Stays in the workshop during the last 12 months (brand workshop, independent workshop, workshop chain, glass specialist, DIY…)
• Breakdowns in the last 12 months
• Work carried out during the last visit (unplanned repair, inspection, software update, accident, MOT, repeated repair, etc.)
• Type of contact vs. preferred contact
• Obtaining comparative offers
• Work carried out on time and in full (reasons if not)
• Reasons for choosing a garage
• Satisfaction with the garage (friendliness of staff, advice, impression of the garage, short notice, speed of execution, quality of work, explanation of work, cost estimate, price/performance)
• eCar as a replacement vehicle
• Free charging during the workshop visit
• Strengthening brand loyalty through workshop experience
• NPS workshop, reasons for non-recommendation
• Experience of EV service and repair costs compared to ICE
• Trust in brand workshops, independent workshops and workshop chains
• Dealing with advertising by the garage (offers, reminders of work due, MOT, wheel changes), desired information channels
• Dealing with Google reviews of the garage

Battery checks:

• Assumed value share of the battery in the overall vehicle
• Desire for regular battery testing as part of the service checks
• Confidence in various providers of battery checks
• Willingness to pay extra when buying a used car if a battery certificate is available
• Willingness to pay for a battery test
• from 2023: Concerns about battery ageing, expected battery ageing, battery checks already carried out, result (actual battery ageing), occasions for battery checks, reasonable price for battery and HV technology check, State-of-Health (SoH) indicator: confidence in correctness and occasions for use

Service hotline:

• Hotline experience
• Reason for contact
• Type of contact, preferred contact, satisfaction with hotline
• Strengthening of brand loyalty through hotline experience, reasons for non-strengthening
• Interest in additional service ideas

Software updates:

• Updates received
• Workshop visit necessary for update
• Request for detailed information on update content
• Problems in connection with updates
• Assessment of technical concept maturity in connection with updates
• from 2023: Perception of frequent updates (strengthening or weakening of trust), update frequency

Digital services:

• General interest in workshop-related digital services, willingness to pay
• Experience with digital services offered by workshops
• Trust in various workshop partners with regard to digital services

Data protection:

• Disruption to the use of data by third parties, type of concern
• from 2023: Trust in careful handling of own data by brand, dealer, insurance company, bank / lessor, willingness to release data for certain purposes

EV drivers report on their experiences with the workshop of their electric car

Only owners and drivers of fully battery-electric e-cars were surveyed for the study. The average holding period of the respondents was 2.5 years. This ensured that all respondents had sufficient experience with the after-sales processes of dealers and manufacturers.

After Sales Automotive:

Which workshop for electric cars has adapted its processes to the new target group?

The content of this study is mainly aimed at after-sales organisations of vehicle manufacturers and importers (NSCs), workshop operators and dealer developers.

The detailed results show what expectations e-car drivers have of the communication processes and on-site support and which offers can be used to successfully address them. The study shows the strengths and weaknesses of competitors and enables benchmarking of their own after-sales processes.

The EV After-Sales Study provides KPIs for important process steps in after-sales and hotline operations. After-sales experts can evaluate and improve their own competitive position. Furthermore, the study provides a sound basis for designing and adapting dealer training to the needs of eMobility. Furthermore, the study offers product managers of connectivity services and other services, such as battery checks, valuable information on the acceptance and development of corresponding offers.

Many exciting findings only become apparent when the results are evaluated separately according to important customer groups. This allows providers to target their offers to different user segments in a differentiated way. Thanks to the high sample size, subscribers to the study can split the results in the interactive dashboard as they wish and analyse them in detail. In addition, the dashboard shows all pre-clustered verbatim mentions of the respondents.

Since 2018, USCALE has been systematically surveying EV drivers about their expectations and experiences at all touchpoints of the e-mobile customer journey. You can find an overview of all USCALE focus studies HERE.

We show extracts from other studies in the LinkedIn articles by USCALE and Axel Sprenger, our company founder.

If you have any questions, please contact us at contact@uscale.digital.