DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Mobile app users are becoming more frequent visitors to a dealership’s service department once they download an associated app, according to new research from DMEautomotive.

The study looked at 307 dealerships nationwide that offer a dealership-branded mobile app and compared the 6-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, users’ 6 month service visits increased by 25%. Service visit frequency grew 3.7 times faster than non-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.”

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

“This is striking evidence that a dealer-branded mobile app designed to keep customers engaged drives real service revenue,” said Mike Walther, president and CEO of DMEautomotive. “Combined with our previous research showing that a customer with a dealership-branded mobile app is 73% more likely to buy a vehicle from that dealer than a customer without one, and app users spend 7% 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.”

The DMEautomotive research studied over 2.2 million consumer records between the months of April 2013 and June 2014. 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.