Engenix.Ai A Kwick Blocks product

Blogs · July 2026

The customer you already have

Everyone is chasing the next enquiry. The customer already on your books is where the missed revenue lives.

The short answer: the trade spends heavily to make a stranger call, and then goes quiet once they have bought or hired. Auto Trader mystery-shopped the top 1,000 UK retailers and found only 36% attempted a follow-up within 48 hours of a visit. Not of an enquiry. Of an actual visit. And the average person takes 87 days to buy a car. So the decision gets made in a window most of the trade is not present for, and the cheapest revenue in the business, the customer who already knows you, is the bit nobody is working.

This is a shorter, indexed version of our report of the same name, written for anyone running a dealer group or a vehicle hire firm in the UK. Every figure below comes from a named, published source, linked at the end. Where we could not stand a figure up, we left it out and say so.

Why is the follow-up the weakest part of the trade?

Because it is the part nobody owns, and the industry's own mystery-shop data shows it.

  • Only 36% attempted a follow-up within 48 hours of a visit.
  • 18% never replied to an email at all.
  • 12% never replied by any channel.
  • Under half of the replies that did arrive came within an hour.

Read that carefully, because it is stronger than the usual speed-to-lead line. This is not someone who filled in a form. This is someone who got in a car and came to see you, which is the highest-intent signal there is. Two days later, most of the trade had not been back in touch.

Now put it next to how people actually buy. The average buyer takes 87 days. 95% still want an in-person experience and around two in three arrive unannounced. Buyers visit 4.2 car search websites, up from 3.5 in 2021. So: an 87-day decision, made across four or more sites, by someone who will turn up on your forecourt without warning, in a trade where most firms will not contact them again within two days of that visit. The enquiry is not the hard part. The eighty-seven days are.

Is this a salesperson problem or a group problem?

A group problem, and treating it as a salesperson problem is why it never gets fixed.

At one site, follow-up is a habit. It runs on two or three people who have been there years and who genuinely care. Across twelve sites it is not a habit, it is a process, and right now it is a process nobody owns. The same buyer, on the same 87-day decision, shopping 4.2 websites, walks into two of your sites in a fortnight and gets two different levels of effort. The group does not have a follow-up standard. It has twelve of them.

It also shows up in CSI before it ever shows up in the sales numbers. A customer who felt ignored says so on the survey months before the effect is visible in a sales report, which is precisely why it survives so long.

What is the aftersales problem actually costing you?

In complaints, not just in bookings. Every dealer knows the service drive is a business in its own right. It is also, on the published evidence, where the relationship breaks.

The Motor Ombudsman handled 18,570 used-car complaints, up 14% on the year, and customer service was the largest single driver at 40% of cases.

We are going to be careful with that 40%, because it is easy to abuse. It does not mean 40% of complaints are about unanswered phones. Customer service is a bucket, and not being answered is one thing in it, alongside undeclared modifications and vehicle histories. What it does tell you is that how you deal with people, after the sale, is the single biggest complaint driver in used cars. That is enough. It does not need inflating.

And the people who could do something about it are expensive and scarce. The average advertised technician salary is £40,128, up 13% in two years. Note "advertised". That is what firms are offering to attract people, not necessarily what the average technician earns. We quote it as a signal of what the labour market is doing, not as a payroll figure. Put it together: your scarcest, most expensive people are in the workshop, and the thing generating the most complaints is the communication around them.

What is different about a hire desk?

Almost everything, and mapping the dealer problem onto it is how most suppliers get this wrong.

The dealer problem is an 87-day patient decision. A hire customer decides on a Thursday for a Friday. The owner is answering the phone between checking a van in and checking another one out. Miss it and they ring the next firm in Google, and that is that.

But the retention story is real here too, and quieter:

  • The extension. They have got the van and they need it another two days. Your easiest revenue of the week, and it depends entirely on someone picking up.
  • The repeat B2B account. The firm that hires every month. Nobody is calling them; they just call you, until one day they call someone else.
  • The seasonal one. The customer who hires the same Luton every October. That is a diary entry nobody keeps.

The trade backdrop is high demand, tight margins. We quote the BVRLA qualitatively and deliberately: their fleet numbers cover leasing, which is a different business from short-term hire, and the market-size figures floating about are analyst estimates in dollars that vary wildly. We are not going to dress those up as facts about your firm.

And here is where we run out of data, so we will say so. There is no published UK figure we could find for what a hire firm loses to missed extensions or lapsed repeat accounts. If someone quotes you one, ask where it came from. We would rather have a gap here than a number we cannot show you.

What can be handed off, and what should never be?

One agent, four ways in, all reading from the same knowledge base: voice, chat, email and social, with your stock, prices, policies, terms and availability feeding all four so they say the same thing.

On the retention job specifically:

  • For a dealer: the service and MOT reminder that goes out on time. The follow-up two days after a forecourt visit, which most of the trade is not sending. The call about a lease maturing before the customer starts looking at four other websites.
  • For a hire firm: the extension answered while the van is still out. The repeat account contacted before October, not during it. The pickup questions handled without the owner putting a van down.

It works alongside your systems, not instead of them. For dealers that means the DMS and CRM you already run.

And what it must never do:

  • It does not guess. If it is not in the knowledge base, it says it will find out and hands to a person.
  • It does not do the technician's job. It books the slot. It does not diagnose anything.
  • A person is always reachable, quickly, without a fight.
  • It does not pester. A reminder that always goes is useful. Six reminders is a complaint. Retention done badly is just spam with your logo on it.
  • Everything is on the record.

Where is an agent the wrong answer?

  • If your service department is already full, do not do this. You do not need more bookings for a workshop with no capacity. Fix the capacity.
  • If you have a good aftersales person who knows the customers by name, protect them. That relationship is worth more than any automation.
  • If your stock or availability data is not current, do not start. An agent reading yesterday's availability will confidently offer a van that went out this morning.
  • If your problem is the product, not the follow-up, no amount of good communication fixes it.

Frequently asked questions

How quickly should a dealership follow up after a visit?

Within 48 hours, because most of the trade does not. Auto Trader's mystery shop of the top 1,000 UK retailers found only 36% attempted a follow-up within 48 hours of a visit. Not of an enquiry, of an actual visit. On a purchase that takes an average of 87 days, one reply and then silence is not a sales process.

What percentage of dealers follow up after a forecourt visit?

36% attempted a follow-up within 48 hours of a visit. The same mystery shop found 18% never replied to an email at all, 12% never replied by any channel, and under half replied within an hour. Auto Trader Insight, October 2025, top 1,000 UK retailers.

What is the biggest driver of used-car complaints?

Customer service, at 40% of cases, out of 18,570 used-car complaints in 2025, up 14% on the year. That is a bucket, and not being answered is one part of it, alongside undeclared modifications and vehicle histories. It does not mean 40% of complaints are about unanswered phones.

What does a technician cost to hire in the UK?

The average advertised technician salary is £40,128, up 13% in two years, according to the IMI's Labour Market Briefing of May 2025. Note advertised: that is what firms are offering to attract people, not a payroll figure for what the average technician earns.

What does a hire firm lose to missed extensions and lapsed repeat accounts?

There is no published UK figure we could verify, and we are not going to invent one. If a supplier quotes you a number for this, ask them where it came from. We would rather have a gap here than a figure we cannot show you.

Will an AI agent replace my aftersales team?

No. It handles the reminder, the booking and the routine questions. It does not diagnose anything and it does not do the technician's job. If you have a good aftersales person who knows customers by name, protect them: that relationship is worth more than any automation.

Sources

Deliberately not claimed. We do not say 40% of complaints are about not being answered: customer service is a bucket and non-response is one part of it. We do not quote a figure for what a hire firm loses to missed extensions or lapsed repeat accounts, because no published UK source exists that we could verify. We do not use BVRLA fleet numbers, which cover leasing rather than short-term hire, or dollar-denominated analyst market-size estimates. The £40,128 is an advertised salary, and we say so wherever it appears.

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