With the number of diagnostic solutions available rising, David Richards, Managing Director at Launch UK, explains how factors can decide on an offering.
More and more motor factors are embracing diagnostics, and in the past two years, the number of solutions available has increased dramatically. The key thing for a motor factor is to supply everything a garage needs, but with an increasing number of diagnostic solutions available, its important motor factors choose their diagnostics partner carefully.
There are many stages of entry into selling diagnostic equipment at motor factor level. One way is to stock the actual product and actually have a dedicated specialist sales rep on the road. From experience, we have seen many motor factors benefit from this level of investment.
Brands, too, have become important. If a cheaper product looks and sounds like a household brand, but doesn’t quite stand up to the rigours of offering free technical support, two years’ free hardware warranty and two years of free software updates, then it may not live up to expectations.
If a garage is investing thousands of pounds in a piece of kit that they rely on every day, then they need to be sure that it works, now and in the long term.
The key thing for a motor factor is to ensure added value throughout the entire range. In addition to top-of-the-range diagnostics, there must also be the provision of exceptional technical support from point of sale to aftersales assistance.
Then there’s the pace of technology; we are constantly exploring the market to introduce the latest equipment into our range and offer customers the most up-to-date technology. Customers rely on Launch to provide them with the newest products of exceptional quality.
Today, workshops require more support in order to offer a complete solution as one piece of diagnostic kit is no longer enough to ensure the best possible service and coverage. In the past, many have looked for a single product that will cover everything, but the marketplace changes so rapidly and there are now multiple solutions a garage needs.
Products have become extremely easy to use and intuitive, enabling technicians to simply connect, select the vehicle and run the fault diagnosis. With new diagnostic solutions, we’re ensuring workshops can capture more of the new vehicle market.
So, choosing a diagnostic tool is often more about choosing the provider ahead of the product. Workshops and motor factors have to ensure the service and support is in place to help them with getting the most from the product. This includes extensive vehicle coverage, costeffective updates and good hardware, all of which have been the backbone of Launch’s growth over the past 10 years.
Launch leads the way in the development of diagnostics equipment as it constantly explores the market, developing and introducing new products to ensure it can meet current customer demand. Our ultimate aim is to ensure the independent automotive aftermarket is able to access and diagnose faults on all modern vehicles and we currently have products within our range that are able to do this effectively, including ADAS and TPMS solutions.
