Cox Automotive has announced plans to integrate Lyft’s ride-sharing service with Cox Automotive’s Xtime, an integrated software platform for retail automotive service departments, providing car owners with a convenient option for getting to and from service appointments, and enabling dealers to easily tap into the latest mobility solutions.
More than 7,500 dealers are using Xtime’s software to manage customer service and maintenance. Last year, dealers used Xtime to handle more than 52 million service appointments and convert more than $13 billion in service revenue. Xtime is underpinned by an open software architecture that can be used by any dealership, regardless of their dealer management system.
“Our success as a dealership is built on ensuring a positive service experience after a customer purchases a vehicle from us,” said Tully Williams, parts and service director for The Niello Company, and Xtime customer. “The Lyft integration with Xtime will provide another way for us to elevate the total ownership experience for our customers and ensure their transportation needs are met while their vehicle is being serviced. As a business, this also helps simplify the management of alternative transportation options, which can reduce our operating expenses.”
The Lyft integration will allow dealers’ customers to select Lyft as a transportation option during the service appointment scheduling process and enable the advisor to seamlessly arrange pick-ups and drop-offs through the check-in tablet application when the customer arrives at the dealership. For customers, this will reduce or eliminate wait times by providing flexible, on-demand transportation.
For dealerships, the new integration provides potential cost savings and transportation flexibility by leveraging Lyft’s network of 1.9 million drivers. Dealerships can reduce or eliminate the fixed costs of shuttle and related driving and insurance expenses by moving to a more on-demand, pay-per-use cost model of ride-sharing services, which better aligns transportation costs with service revenue.
The integration enhances an area of business becoming increasingly important to dealers. In fact, service revenue now accounts for 49 percent of dealership profits, according to NADA research, and 74 percent of customers who visited a dealership in the last 12 months for service are likely to return to purchase their next vehicle, according to the recent Cox Automotive Service Industry Study.
The Lyft integration also builds on Cox Automotive’s commitment to provide dealers with solutions to more efficiently operate their businesses and better serve customers. More than half of millennials are using ride-hailing services, according to the 2018 Cox Automotive Evolution of Mobility Study.
“The Xtime and Lyft integration is another step toward helping transform automotive dealerships from sales centers into full-fledged transportation hubs,” said Tracy Fred, vice president and general manager for Xtime at Cox Automotive. “The new solution will help dealers give service customers an excellent experience that will keep them coming back to the dealership.”
The Lyft option will be available in the second-half of 2019 to all Xtime customers through its consumer Schedule product and offered with the Engage service advisor check-in tablet solution.
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