A study by AAA found that one in three drivers in the United States cannot pay for an unexpected car bill. Unexpected repairs can cost anywhere from $10 for a flat tire to $5000 for a transmission issue.
The reality is that many drivers only turn to repair shops when a costly breakdown has occurred. This amplifies the inconvenience and frustration associated with maintenance visits.
But the average age of a car on the road in the U.S. has reached a record level of 12.5 years in 2023 amidst rising vehicle costs. The benefit of vehicle maintenance is even more apparent now to customers who want to preserve their vehicle’s longevity and value.
So how can the automotive maintenance industry use telematics to rise to the occasion and boost customer satisfaction while navigating pricer market conditions?
Preventive vs predictive automotive maintenance
If you want to build trust and loyalty within your customer base, you’ll want to help them maximize savings while enhancing their vehicle performance.
Preventive maintenance reminders typically operate around set schedules. Perhaps you have email checklists and automated text messages set up on a monthly or quarterly basis. But despite the immense value this provides, there are shortcomings.
- Customers might be pointed toward unnecessary services based on generic schedules instead of specific vehicle conditions.
- Customers could end up replacing parts that are not worn out yet.
- Customers remain unaware of potential warning signs that might arise in between scheduled reminders.
Your businesses can build on the solid foundation of preventive maintenance schedules with predictive maintenance capabilities that help customers act on vehicle-specific recommendations.
But here’s a common misconception: You don’t need to build your own software or purchase complex hardware to put this into action.
With a secure car API platform, you can enable predictive maintenance across your customer base without having to invest heavily in new hardware, technician training programs, or managing multiple partnerships across vehicle brands.
What can your automotive business do with predictive maintenance?
Whether you’re an autocare retailer, auto dealership, or vehicle servicing solution, businesses can use Smartcar to engage customers with predictive maintenance in the following ways:
- Direct customers to nearby shops: Set up automated triggers that detect a potential vehicle issue based on certain data conditions — like tire pressure falling below a certain value. When this trigger occurs, use the vehicle’s location data to recommend nearby repair shops and services.
- Send seasonal reminders: Monitor vehicle data periodically to begin building a historical data set of your customer’s vehicle performance. Use these data sets to predict customer needs during seasonal maintenance. For example, you can personalize seasonal reminders for EV battery checks and tire rotation based on your customer’s vehicle data.
- Targeted upsells and promotions: Use predictive maintenance data to help customers identify services and products they need to resolve those issues. You’ll be able to build trust in the sales process by giving customers the exact impact of the services and products you’re recommending to them. On top of that, you can customize promotions and upsells based on their vehicle data.
- Targeted educational content: Gather insight into your customer’s vehicle performance and maintenance history to engage customers with helpful tips and resources to navigate the servicing process. For example, you can supplement a predictive maintenance alert regarding a vehicle’s engine oil life with content on how to select the right oil type or video tutorials on the oil change process. This approach establishes your business trusted resource for all their vehicle servicing needs or questions.
Why use telematics for automotive predictive maintenance
At the very minimum, integrating automotive predictive maintenance into a software application requires two components:
- Reliable and regular access to vehicle metrics.
- Automated data collection triggered by specific vehicle events.
Vehicle telematics allows businesses to monitor vehicle data points on demand without having to purchase hardware like OBD-II dongles.
For example, Bumper is a vehicle history report solution that evaluated using OBD-II dongles to enable vehicle service reminders in their web-based application. However, they found that it would be too difficult of a user experience to have their customers wait for a hardware device and install it themselves.
They then opted to use the Smartcar API to scale data collection across a wide range of vehicle brands and models with purely software.
With vehicle telematics, businesses can monitor vehicle mileage, tire pressure, fuel tank levels, and more on a recurring basis—whether in-store to speed up shop operations or to gain visibility into a customer’s vehicle performance in between shop visits.
Remote vehicle analytics and troubleshooting
Build credibility with customers by using vehicle telematics to help drivers identify potential warning signs of vehicle issues before they come in for service. This helps them better prepare their schedules, budgets, and expectations for upcoming maintenance appointments. Proactively addressing these issues not only prevents costly breakdowns but also saves time during the actual appointment so that it’s more convenient more customers and resource-efficient for you as a business.
Scalability and adaptability
Telematics gives businesses more flexibility to expand the scope of their service offerings or completely redefine them. For example, Smartcar customers use our API to ensure that a majority of customers already have the means to onboard their vehicle to a maintenance solution — all they need to do to tap into their own vehicle data is use their automaker’s connected services capabilities. These businesses don’t have to deal with the friction of purchasing hardware and always have the option to integrate new vehicles and data streams into their solution.
Software-based onboarding will become a lot easier to manage as your customer base grows, especially if you want your business to keep up with vehicle modernization and new EV models emerging in the market.
Consistent access to timely vehicle data
With just a few clicks, auto businesses and their customers can retrieve the exact vehicle data points they need. The Smartcar API returns standardized data across vehicle brands, giving customers a seamless way to act on vehicle information for various maintenance use cases — whether it’s to bring customers back to an application, deliver notifications and alerts, or enable roadside assistance. Telematics allows businesses to give drivers a maintenance experience that’s more transparent, on-demand, and easy to understand.
Software-driven innovation
The repair and maintenance experience is changing dramatically. Mobility solutions like Bumper and Treads are using telematics to demystify vehicle information and make maintenance more accessible for everyone. On the other hand, nationwide networks of autocare retailers engage with partners like Revvo to use predictive maintenance to drive shop visits, sales, and customer loyalty. Depending on your business priorities, you can use telematics to maximize vehicle data and predictive maintenance to strengthen existing service offerings, develop new ones, or establish more digital channels for customers to communicate and engage with you.
How to get started with Smartcar for predictive maintenance
Here are a few resources to help you explore what Smartcar can do for you! Schedule a meeting with our team of experts to run through our platform and what it can look for your business.
- Review our buyer's guide to connected car platforms with your team (includes a free checklist and sample questions to ask potential data vendors)
- Should you build or buy vehicle integrations? Learn about the cost and benefits of developing telematics integrations in-house versus working with Smartcar.
Check out our customer stories to see how solutions like Treads and Bumper use the Smartcar API to deliver predictive maintenance alerts to drivers.
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