Tuesday, 22 March 2016 17:27

The end of the JMG Maintenance Plan

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Time called on JMG Maintenance plan.

Back in 2008, JMG Porsche introduced the JMG Maintenance plan, where customers could pay a monthly fee which would cover servicing costs, labour on any repairs and a yearly MOT test.

In 2008 the financial climate was very different to what it is now. The press were talking much about a new phenomena which they were calling the credit crunch. Even very large blue chip companies were making redundances and even those in what would usually be very safe industries suddenly were worried about the chance of being made redundant, or at very least having to tighten their belt for what was thought as was going to be a couple of year long recession.

JMG Introduced the maintenance plan for those customers who were worried about their financial future, or those in some cases who had to offer reassurances to their partners that "That car" would only cost a set amount to run each month.

During "the recession" or "credit crunch" the maintenance plan was very popular and helped many customers ride out the storm, which raged on much longer than anyone ever expected, it's now 2016 and many even now speculate that it may come back at any moment.

However, following a couple of years of what many see as the recovery, the maintenance plan has become less relevant and we have seen the numbers of members trailing off, instead choosing the traditional "pay as you go" method of maintaining their Porsche.

Obviously the maintenance plan, a little like insurance underwriting, needs a healthy population of subscribers for the laws of averages to work, and once the number of subscribers drops bellow a certain point, either the monthly subscription needs to increase, or that kind of membership needs to be closed down.

As a business, we take choices like closing down the maintenance plan very seriously. Our view is that any service we offer needs to either make a profit or at very least needs to break even, otherwise, customers of other services we offer will be subsidising the loss making service. In this case, following analysis of the potential risks, such as an expensive engine rebuild for a member, it would seem that the amount of members no longer allows for the plan to be viable, without putting other services we offer at risk of making a loss, so the sad decision has been made to close down the maintenance plan.

All remaining members of the plan have been notified, and as a good will gesture have been told that they can have their services earlier, even if not due, as well as they have all been offered a 20% discount for menu price items and labour over the next 12 months. Most have even commented that they were thinking of switching to "pay as you go" traditional maintenance anyway, and so far their have not been any complaints.

Today the maintenance plan part of the website has been removed.

Rest assured, if the financial climate outlook was ever to again look unpredictable for our client base, we will re-introduce the maintenance plan again.

In the meantime, this will not effect the rest of business. JMG Porsche will continue to invest heavily in the latest technology and staff with an eye on perfecting the Porsche maintenance, diagnosis, repair and modification services we offer.

Many thanks

Jon Mitchell

 

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