Cars.com Offers Used-Car Service Certification Program for Dealers

Cars.com has announced that it is unveiling a program designed specifically to help differentiate dealership service departments.

Called RepairPal Certified, the approach qualifies franchise dealerships that distinctively verify trusted service departments. The badge assures consumers that a dealership’s service department has strong customer satisfaction scores and offers guaranteed fair prices, warranties for its work and qualified technicians.

To earn and maintain RepairPal certification, a dealership’s service department must complete an assessment every 90 days covering four key areas: Technical Assessment, Minimum Warranty, Customer Satisfaction and Price Guarantee.

A RepairPal Certified dealer must have OEM-certified technicians, at least a 12 month/12,000 mile warranty, a minimum number of Cars.com Service Reviews with an overall 4-star rating in sales or service, and pricing that falls within the RepairPal Estimator.

Spurring the move are industry trends. Consider: More than 86 percent of cars on the road today are past warranty, and dealers may lose service revenue as these vehicles age. In fact, according to Cars.com, dealers lose an average of 60 to 78 percent of revenue on three- to six-year-old cars, and 82 to 92 percent of revenue on cars more than seven years old.

Car owners often leave the dealership for service because they’re skeptical of high prices. RepairPal Certified is designed to reverse the storyline, offering dealers a way to promote quality work and fair prices.

Category: Featured, General Update