Last updated: October 15, 2026
Quick answer: Dealership service retention is falling. Cox Automotive found that only 54% of owners of cars two years old or newer went back to their selling dealer for service in 2025, down from 72% in 2023. Price isn't the reason, since dealership repairs averaged less than independent shops. Surprise costs and poor communication are. Across 871 dealerships, customers with a digital conversation on their RO came back about 6 points more often.
Cox Automotive published its 2025 Service Industry Study in November 2025. The number that matters most: in 2023, 72% of people with a car two years old or newer took it back to the dealership they bought it from for service. By 2025, that number was 54%. An 18-point drop in two years, on your newest, most loyal customers.
Our own platform data shows the gap too. Across 871 dealerships and 16.8 million repair orders, strict cohort retention measured 65.8% against NADA's 72% target. Counting customers who came back after someone reached out, it rises to 73.9% (The Cost of Silence).
One caution on comparing that to Cox. Cox measured owners of vehicles two years old or newer going back to their selling dealer. Our cohort is every customer who came through a store in the prior twelve months. Different populations, different questions, so don't put the two numbers side by side.
Zoom out and it's worse. Cox found dealerships handle 12% fewer service visits than they did in 2018. Cars aren't disappearing. They're just getting fixed somewhere else.
Is price why service customers leave?
No. Here's the part that should actually bother you. Dealership repairs averaged $261 a visit in 2025. General repair shops averaged $275. Dealerships are cheaper, on average, and still losing the business.
Cox's own data says why. Nearly half of vehicle owners (45%) are dissatisfied with their dealership service experience, mostly because of unexpected costs and poor communication. A bill nobody saw coming, and no word from the shop until it was already done. That's the same silence that shows up when nobody picks up the phone during peak hours, just a slower version of it. It's not a pricing problem. It's a "nobody told me what was happening" problem.
Why is this bigger than the service lane?
Because service feeds sales. Cox found that owners who get their car serviced at the dealership are much more likely (74%) to buy their next car from the same place. So every customer who quietly drifts to an independent shop isn't just a lost oil change. They're a cooling lead on the next sale too. By the time that shows up in a sales number, the actual cause happened two years earlier and nobody connected the two.
What does losing service customers cost you?
Run this with your own numbers, not a stock example. Cox puts dealership service and parts revenue at over $156 billion in 2024, across more than 270 million repair orders. Divide one by the other and you get about $577 per repair order. That figure covers all service and parts revenue, including warranty and internal work, which is why it runs well above the customer-pay averages earlier in this post. If your store has lost even a slice of that 12% since 2018, multiply your own lost RO count by your own average ticket and see where you land. Once your own numbers are in front of you, it's not a guess. It's multiplication.
Which lapsed customers are most worth chasing back?
Not every lapsed customer is equally worth the effort. A few groups matter more than a generic "we miss you" blast.
Declined and deferred work. A customer who said no to a repair last visit didn't say no forever. They said no that day, for whatever reason that day. A follow-up a few weeks later, tied to the actual line item they declined, is a very different conversation than a generic reminder. Here's how to follow up on declined service.
Recall and warranty-expiry customers. These customers have the most concrete reason to come back, an open recall or a warranty clock running out, and the least reason to feel sold to. A recall notice isn't marketing. It's information they need.
The one-visit-and-gone customers. The ones Cox's data is really describing, the newer-vehicle owners who showed up once and never came back. They're not angry. They just never got a reason to think of you the second time.
The customers you do win back aren't small tickets. Across the same 871 stores, a customer returning after 13 months or more spent $549.28 on that visit, against $320.76 on other ROs. Reactivated customers make up 1% to 7% of RO volume, about 4% at a typical store.
What brings service customers back?
Reaching out, and the lift shows up in the subgroups rather than the average. Across the same 871 stores, retention runs 6 points higher on repair orders that carried a digital conversation, 9 to 10 points higher among customers who received a campaign, and 7 points higher among customers given a loaner. Each was measured separately, each across more than 20,000 customers. These are correlations, not controlled tests. Bigger, more engaged customers naturally generate more contact. But all of these signals point the same way.
None of this requires guessing who to contact or building a spreadsheet from a DMS export once a quarter. With Kimoby Grow, follow-up goes out automatically off the customer and vehicle data already in your DMS: a declined line item, an open recall, a warranty clock, a season change. The message is tied to the actual reason, not a generic "come on back." It comes from the same thread that already has the customer's texts, their last video inspection and their repair history, so it doesn't read like a form letter.
What it doesn't do yet: there's no native online scheduler, so the customer books through the scheduler your store already uses. More on improving dealership retention if you want the full playbook, or book a demo to see the campaigns on your own data.
FAQ
Why is dealership service retention dropping?
Cox Automotive's 2025 Service Industry Study found only 54% of owners of cars two years old or newer went back to their selling dealer for service in 2025, down from 72% in 2023. Customers point to unexpected costs and poor communication, not price, since dealership repairs averaged less than general repair shops.
What is a good service retention rate for a dealership?
NADA targets 72% year-over-year retention. Across 871 dealerships in our Cost of Silence report, strict cohort retention was 65.8%, and 73.9% when counting customers who came back after outreach.
How do dealerships bring back service customers who haven't been in for over a year?
Start with customers who have a concrete reason to return: declined or deferred work, open recalls and expiring warranties. Follow-up tied to that specific reason reads as useful information, not a generic win-back blast.
Does losing service customers actually affect vehicle sales?
Yes. Cox Automotive found owners who service their car at the dealership are much more likely (74%) to buy their next car from the same place. Service retention works as a sales pipeline, not just a fixed ops metric.
What does Kimoby Grow do?
It automates declined-service follow-up, recall campaigns, warranty-expiry reminders, seasonal campaigns like tire season and CSI follow-up, using the customer and vehicle data from your DMS. Across the platform, outbound campaigns booked 154,003 appointments and drove $50.5 million in attributed service revenue.
Sources
[1] Cox Automotive, 2025 Service Industry Study (published November 2025).
[2] Kimoby, The Cost of Silence: Dealership Service Report (August 2026). 871 dealerships, 16.8 million repair orders, 12 months ending February 2026. Retention and revenue figures are observed correlations, not controlled experiments.
