Toyota extends fixed price servicing

What to do when you're the acknowledged leading marketer of vehicles in Australia -- and you want to remain in that position?

Not letting any grass grow underfoot, Toyota has expanded the fixed-price servicing incentive -- Toyota Service Advantage -- to cover more vehicles in the local range.

Toyota has renamed the fixed-price servicing program and, following the company's initiative to include the Corolla within the program in October of last year, will now include 2008-plated Yaris, Prius, Tarago, Avensis and four-cylinder RAV4. By May of this year, Toyota expects that up to 70 per cent of the product range will be covered under the Toyota Service Advantage program.

Under the scheme, Corolla owners will pay no more than $120 for standard servicing at Toyota dealerships during the new car warranty period.

Owners of other models may pay $150 or $180 for each service. 

Purchasers can elect to go with the service plan at any time during the first six months of ownership and the plan remains in force until the expiry of the warranty after three years or once the vehicle has travelled 60,000km, if that occurs within three years.

Fixed-price servicing has been promoted by after-market service providers who can ensure that the new car warranty is not affected by the work done.

So Toyota's program competes on price with a typical manufacturer's handbook-standard service from an after-market provider, but with the added advantage that technicians are thoroughly trained on that particular model.

Plans such as these attract new car buyers who might decide in favour of buying a Toyota over a competitor, since its running costs for the term of the warranty are bound to be lower than its competitors' costs and can be easily accounted in a budget. 

The plan, which has been strongly supported by Toyota's dealer network, is available to private buyers and fleets, but not rental or government buyers.

In the words of Dave Buttner, Toyota's Senior Executive Director for Sales and Marketing: "[The dealers] were the prime motivators and suggester of this scheme.

"Customers weren't necessarily coming back to a Toyota dealership for their service.

"We feel that giving the dealers that ability to keep in touch with the customers, of course, they can grow the relationship with their customer, growing customers for life."

Buttner said that the first impetus for this scheme arose in 2003, when the company noted that "volume was starting to grow", but "customer satisfaction was going backwards".

"Developing customers for life" is, according to Buttner, the catchphrase adopted by Sales & Marketing staff at Toyota these days.

Toyota was not able to provide retention rate statistics for servicing, but the scheme plays on customers' willingness to drive a long way for a bargain, but preferring to have the car serviced around the corner from home.

 » Get the best price on a new Toyota

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