The importance of automotive services in the distribution business and their critical factors for success

In many industries, services are an increasing source of business expansion and offer the chance to enhance customer relationship management, interaction and retention. In the automotive business numerous new services for end-consumers are discussed in various professional and scientific papers and conferences. However, the importance of services to endconsumers and the success factors in providing them may differ among countries as the regional market development and the strategies and performance of the local market automotive leaders vary. Moreover, many of these services are directly provided through the automotive distribution channel which are mainly the independent or franchise automotive distributors. Therefore, this paper examines the importance of services for car and motorcycle dealers and critical factors for being successful with services through a qualitative study conducted with 20 automotive experts comparing four different geographic areas (Austria/Germany, Poland, Italy and the Czech Republic) in the framework of a European research project.