Cox put it plainly. Only 14% of consumers have ever been offered a trade value during a service visit. 33% want one.
That is a nineteen point gap on customers who are already on your property, in your system, with a service history you wrote yourself.
Why the service drive is the best inventory on the lot
You know the car. Not a condition report from three states away, not a set of photos, not a seller telling you it runs great. You have the repair orders. You know what was done to it, when, and by whom, because it was done by you.
Dealers already sourcing this way say the same two things about it. Reduced reliance on auction and wholesale, and lower recon risk because the history is known. That second one is the part the spreadsheet misses. A recon surprise does not just cost the repair, it costs the days.
What stops it
Same thing that stops the appraisal ratio. Somebody has to have the conversation, and the advisor writing the RO is not going to run an acquisition pitch between a brake job and a customer waiting on a shuttle.
So the offer gets made to the ones who ask, which is not the same as the ones who want it. Two thirds of the customers who would take a number are never asked whether they would.