Lars-Alexander Lilje, Sales Director DACH at Tjekvik, has spent twenty-five years in the automotive industry and the last two helping German dealers navigate exactly this shift.
Recently, our CEO Martin Nørgaard Høgh sat down with Lars to talk through what’s really happening on the ground in Germany. Here’s the hot take 👇
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Germany’s automotive industry runs on relationship. It’s a market built on trust between dealer and customer, often carried across years and multiple vehicles.
So when self-service technology enters that picture, the obvious question follows: does it work against a business that has always been people-first?
Self-service not about replacing staff
Self-service doesn’t mean pulling people out of the process. It means giving customers the option to choose how they want to move through it. Some will always want to speak to a service advisor face to face, and that relationship isn’t going anywhere. Others would rather drop a key in a kiosk at 9pm and skip the conversation entirely. Both are valid, and they don’t have to exclude one another.
What self-service changes is where a team’s time goes. When routine steps such as check-in, key drop-off, or status updates run on their own, staff get back the hours they used to spend on logistics. That time can move toward the customers who need personalised attention.
The expectation shift is already underway
Customers don’t benchmark a workshop visit against other visits. They benchmark it against every other service experience in their life – checking into a flight, checking into a hotel, ordering groceries online.
None of those experiences involve standing in a queue waiting for someone to say hello, hand over a key, and wave goodbye. Increasingly, workshop visits are held to the same standard.
That shift shows up clearest with younger drivers but isn’t limited to them. Recurring customer experience research shows the appetite for self-service and online options growing steadily across the board – not uniformly or overnight, but consistently. It’s not that the automotive industry changed the customer. The customer changed thanks to their experience elsewhere and is now bringing that expectation back to the dealership.
The best journey is the one the customer chooses
The mistake would be forcing every customer down a single path, whether digital or physical. That’s not what a people-driven market wants, and it’s not what works. The better approach is offering the full range of options – in-person, online check-in, in-dealership check-in, outdoor drop-off, etc – and letting each customer pick what fits them, visit by visit.
That flexibility matters more in some regions than others. Expectations around convenience and personal service vary noticeably across Germany and its neighboring markets – north versus south, volume brands versus premium – which is exactly why a single rigid process doesn’t hold up. What does hold up is a system flexible enough to meet every customer where they are, without ever making the human option feel like an afterthought.
Communication makes the difference
None of this works if it’s simply switched on and left unexplained. The biggest factor in adoption isn’t the technology itself – it’s whether the dealer communicates clearly with their own team and their customers about what’s changing and why.
Self-service isn’t a signal that the dealership wants less contact with its customers. Framed properly, it’s quite the opposite: a way to protect the relationship by making sure staff time goes where it matters most.
Done right, self-service and a people-driven culture aren’t in tension at all. They’re the same strategy, just extended to cover more of the customer’s day.
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Tjekvik Conversations is a series exploring the ideas, challenges, and market shifts shaping automotive aftersales.