Consumers value certification, but don't know if their auto tech is certified

Nearly half of consumers think it’s important that their service technician is certified, a new survey suggests. Only about one in 10 of those surveyed assert that certification “doesn’t particularly matter to me.”

But while many consumers believe certification is important, the survey revealed that almost as many did not know or had not been told whether their dealership’s techs were certified.

That suggests a big opportunity for dealerships to educate service customers about the training their technicians have received.

The survey, conducted on behalf of Fixed Ops Journal, included 17,221 consumers who wrote a comment between July 2 and 8 about their dealership experience on DealerRater.com.

About half said they had not had their vehicle serviced at the dealership they wrote about.

Of the remaining 8,476 respondents who had service work done at the dealership, 47 percent of respondents chose the option that “the technician was certified; certification is important to me.” Meanwhile, 42 percent checked: “I don’t know whether the technician was certified.”

Only 11 percent checked that “the technician was certified, but that doesn’t particularly matter to me.” Just 0.4 percent said the technician who worked on their vehicle “was not certified.”

!function(d, s) {var ip = d.createElement(s);ip.async = 1, s = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], ip.src = "//s.idio.co/ip.js", s.parentNode.insertBefore(ip, s)}(document, "script");$(function() { $idoWidget = $('#idio-article-recommendations-8'); $imageContainer = $idoWidget.prev().prev(); $imageEle = $imageContainer.children('img'); if ($imageEle && $imageEle.length > 0) { $imageContainer.insertAfter($idoWidget); }});

A look at the responses by brand — limited to those with at least 125 responses — indicates that pickup owners are among the most inclined to value technician certification.

Ram led all brands, with 53 percent of its respondents saying certification is important. Next were GMC at 51 percent and Nissan at 50 percent. That performance topped such luxury brands as Acura, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, which ranged between 47 and 49 percent, and Lexus at 44 percent.

Customers who didn’t know whether their technician was certified outnumbered those who said they considered certification important at four brands: Chrysler, Hyundai, Mazda and Subaru. Chrysler led the “dunno” crowd at 53 percent, followed by Hyundai and Subaru at 50 percent and Mazda at 49 percent.

Ram and Volkswagen had the smallest portion of respondents who didn’t know whether their technician was certified, at 37 percent, edging out Chevrolet and GMC at 38 percent.

One percent of respondents at these brands said their tech wasn’t certified: BMW, Dodge, Jeep, Kia, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota.

If you have had a vehicle serviced at this dealership, did you know or were you told whether the service technician was certified — and does that matter to you?1. I have, and the technician was certified; certification is important to me.2. I have, but I don’t know whether the technician was certified.3. I have, and the technician was certified, but that doesn’t particularly matter to me.4. I have, and the technician was not certified.Source: DealerRater.com survey of consumers who recently visited a dealership, conducted July 2-8. Of the 17,221 total respondents, 8,476 had their vehicles serviced at the dealership. Percentages exclude those respondents who had not had a vehicle serviced at that dealership.Brands listed had at least 125 respondents. Totals may not equal 100 percent because of rounding.

ATTENTION COMMENTERS: Automotive News has monitored a significant increase in the number of personal attacks and abusive comments on our site. We encourage our readers to voice their opinions and argue their points. We expect disagreement. We do not expect our readers to turn on each other. We will be aggressively deleting all comments that personally attack another poster, or an article author, even if the comment is otherwise a well-argued observation. If we see repeated behavior, we will ban the commenter. Please help us maintain a civil level of discourse.

View the original article here