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The Retention Gap Report

Margins on new cars are under pressure. Selling used vehicles is becoming increasingly difficult. Customers demand faster, more personalised service - while dealership teams are constrained by manual labour.

Key Findings:

  • 74% of dealers cannot quantify their aftersales revenue loss
  • 3× higher lifetime value for retained vs. lost customers
  • 19% dealer retention by year 8 - the highest-value service years
  • 80% of dealers expect profitability to get harder in the next 2–3 years
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Why this report

The workshop is now the primary commercial engine of the dealership.

New car margins are under sustained pressure. Aftersales has become the most important profit driver in the modern dealership. And yet 38% of European dealers have no named owner for retention. This report benchmarks where 559 dealerships across eight markets actually stand.

86% of dealers have online booking. The problem is not tooling. It's a systematic failure to measure, own, and act on the retention opportunity already inside every dealership's customer base. This report documents that gap and the three moves to close it.