Customers booking a garage or workshop slot on the BookMyGarage comparison and booking platform are motivated more by distance than price, according to its latest data. UK drivers have compared garages to book their MOT, service and repairs on BookMyGarage over 22 million times with the site’s latest analysis revealing that they are much more motivated by distance than price in their decision-making criteria.
Less than a fifth (18%) of users opt to change the results ‘sort-by’ option, overriding the default search of ‘relevance’. Of those, most – 42% – change the search to ‘distance’ from their postcode. It shows that a key motivator for drivers using the BookMyGarage site is the proximity of the garage to their home.
Consequently, BookMyGarage has amended its search return options with distance as top on the filter selection when sorting garage listings after its default of ‘relevance’. The logic that drives the ‘relevance’ default has also been updated to further prioritise the garages that are closer to the user’s inputted postcode. Other factors include customer reviews, SLAs, and the BookMyGarage package of each garage.
The platform, which has generated £100 million+ worth of retail custom for the independent and franchised sectors in the past 12 months, continually evolves, optimises and enhances its offering to best reflect consumer behaviour and motivators ensuring a hassle-free experience for their car maintenance.
Jessica Potts, chief marketing officer at BookMyGarage, said: “We keep extremely close tabs on our data to ensure our services reflect consumer needs and behaviours which in turn maximises income for our garage and franchised network partners. When we discovered motorists are driven more by distance than price, we acted accordingly and changed our search settings to prioritise distance. “It is tempting to think that motorists are mostly influenced by price and as such we had placed it top of the sort selection. However, our data told a different story which also flies in the face of the conventional view that aggregate platforms are simply a race to the bottom. While this may be true on some platforms, BookMyGarage’s consumers are more interested in finding a garage that they feel they can trust (hence most don’t even change the default sort which highly focusses on reviews and SLAs) and that is convenient (distance and availability). Of course, price is a determining factor but not the primary motivator.”
Motorists searching the BookMyGarage platform for a multitude of aftermarket services including service, MOTs, repairs, and now cosmetic & SMART repairs, have the option to tailor their search to their preferences. Garages and franchised workshops can be listed according to distance, business name, price, availability and reviews.
BookMyGarage’s packages have been specifically designed for independent garages and franchised workshops who want to gain brand exposure locally and an instant stream of bookings. BookMyGarage invests its own marketing funds to drive bookings from drivers searching for specific aftermarket services.
As the UK’s leading comparison site for MOTs and servicing, the BookMyGarage platform has generated £101,599,166 for its garage partners in the last 12 months. With complete control over availability, lead times and pricing, BookMyGarage offers guaranteed results with its pay-on-success model whilst its popular Accelerate package, guarantees a 300% return on revenue.
