A NEW SERVICE designed to drive more retail sales for dealers, by helping motorists with their new and used car choices, is to be launced in August by CAP Automotive.

After 34 years as a ‘trade-only’ partner for motor retail professionals CAP has begun providing independent expert information to motorists, designed to improve the conversation and relationship between dealers and their customers.

The launch of a ‘Total Cost of Motoring’ tool at cap.co.uk today enables motorists, for the first time, to find all the long-term car ownership cost information they need in one place.

Free to use, the Total Cost of Motoring tool will provide comprehensive, accurate and independent comparisons between the long-term running costs of cars. Results will be provided to motorists who register their details. Registration information will then be cleansed, analysed and transformed into genuine ‘hot leads’ for motor retailers.

A strong consumer appetite for such a service was identified in extensive research among private motorists, conducted independently for CAP. It revealed overwhelming evidence that motorists want high quality, independent information from one single source, to help with their car purchase choices.

Because CAP has an unrivalled suite of quantitative and qualitative data sets on current and future values, technical and specification information – all seamlessly linked by the unique CAP Code – the business believes it is the most strongly placed player in the automotive information sector to provide such a service.

CAP also believes that dealers will enjoy a ‘win-win’ advantage from the provision of its consumer services. Not only will dealers win more sales, based on the leads generated by CAP’s Total Cost of Motoring tool, but they will also benefit from a smoother negotiation and transaction process when motorists are more confident about the best choice of car, based on their long-range budget.

CAP Head of Consumer, Ben Maguire, said: “We were struck by one of our research findings that nearly one in three motorists had previously regretted a car purchase on the grounds of overall long-term costs. Helping motorists to avoid such disappointments can only benefit everyone in the market.

“We believe that providing better ownership cost information to consumers will assist in smoothing the car sales process by helping motorists feel more confident about the best car choices to investigate with their dealer. Ultimately our aim is to help elevate the quality of the discussion between good dealers and motorists so that sales are increased for dealers and satisfaction is higher for motorists.”

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