The Australian automotive workshop landscape is remaining in a good state.

The latest research conducted by ACA Research looks into workshop performance, business profitability, growth strategies, and industry challenges.

The research shows that workshops are growing and are focusing on other opportunities to increase profitability including placing emphasis on customer satisfaction.

The average capacity of Australian workshops is sitting at 82%, and 48% of businesses that expected growth last year achieved 38% into 2019. This means that the industry is in a strong position, with two in every five workshops expecting to increase the number of vehicles they service over the coming year.

Both industry leaders and businesses are looking at a range of strategies to increase productivity and growth.

Interestingly, of the workshops surveyed, 81% believed increasing female customer satisfaction was an important goal. Almost 60% reported growth in female customers and believed there was a much higher importance-factor on females as a key growth area.

Other high priorities for business growth included investing in equipment, increasing staff efficiency and reducing overheads as well as value-add customer services, fleet servicing and capturing customer feedback. Customer feedback enables business owners and managers to better understand their customers and helps to steer their business in a direction that improves customer satisfaction and retention, while identifying areas for new customer growth.

The research highlighted that the addition of new servicing offerings builds value and efficiency for existing customers and can also attract new customers. 81% of automotive workshops are aiming to incorporate vehicle collection and drop off and 69% believed the use of email/SMS confirmation were a priority as were online booking systems (50%) and loyalty programs (28%). Weekend servicing, extended business hours, vehicle cleaning, mobile servicing and courtesy buses were also mentioned in the research.

The largest challenge for automotive workshops remains that consumers are not aware they can choose an independent workshop to service their car during the warranty period. MTA Queensland do constantly advocate on behalf of our members to ensure that education in relation to right to repair is a top priority.

There has been 21% growth in vehicles serviced within warranty periods, and log-book servicing by independent repairers increased from 5% to 11%.

The research shows that the industry is in a good place and there are effective growth strategies being considered for independent automotive repairers.

The research is available as a free download HERE.