04 June 2012

Toyota is planning to switch to an electronic service record system later this year.

The move is part of a wide-ranging plan to improve the Toyota network’s aftersales performance, according to the brand’s managing director and president Jon Williams.

“On aftersales you’ve got to be innovative and you’ve got to offer the customers what they want,” he said.

“You’ve got to retain customers. For instance, we relaunched Toyota Insurance 18 months ago to make it competitive, now 20% of new retail customers buy Toyota insurance, which means that repairs are done using Toyota parts at Toyota dealers. And all of our dealers sell tyres, because that’s the first point of defection.

“We’ve just launched a national fixed-price servicing offer, now we’re about to launch an online portal called MyToyota for servicing with electronic service records,” said Mr Williams, speaking to Auto Retail Agenda.

Mr Williams said he was looking to improve the network’s average percentage overhead absorption rate, which is currently running in the “mid- to low-70s”.

Mr Williams remained tightlipped about when the MyToyota system would be rolled out, but said he expected it to include a mobile app, similar to the one recently launched by Mazda to compliment its electronic service record, shortly after the MyToyota launch.

Tags: absorption, aftersales, defection, electronic service records, insurance, Toyota, tyres