DMEautomotive said the results of its latest study prove dealerships that have a mobile app to generate business for their service drive can generate six-figure increases in parts and service revenue.

The company explained its new research showed that mobile app users become more frequent visitors to a dealership’s service department after they download the app. The study looked at 307 dealerships nationwide that offer a dealership-branded mobile app and compared the six-month service visit frequency of consumers after installing the app, versus prior to downloading.

According to the research, after downloading a dealership’s mobile app, these two trends surfaced:

— Six-month service visits increased by 25 percent after download of the app.

— Service visit frequency grew 3.7 times faster than non-app users.

DMEautomotive estimates an annual lift of $144,000 in incremental service revenue for every 1,000 app users.

“These are remarkable findings,” said Marcie Hopey, director of strategy for DMEautomotive. “While most dealers may think a branded mobile app is a ‘nice to have,’ this proves that not only do apps engage customers in unprecedented ways, they also deliver significant incremental service revenue.”

The DMEautomotive research studied more than 2.2 million consumer records between April of last year and June of this year. The study covered a mix of 307 dealerships, representing multiple brands, store sizes and regions, all of which offer Driver Connect — DMEautomotive’s dealership-branded mobile app — to their customers.

“This is striking evidence that a dealer-branded mobile app designed to keep customers engaged drives real service revenue,” said Mike Walther, president and chief executive officer of DMEautomotive.

“Combined with our previous research showing that a customer with a dealership-branded mobile app is 73 percent more likely to buy a vehicle from that dealer than a customer without one, and app users spend 7 percent more on their vehicle purchase than non-app users, it’s clear that apps have a profound and positive revenue lift on both the service lane and in the showroom,” Walther went on to say.