Almost 300 Service Plan dealer 'champions' were trained by The Warranty Group in the third quarter of this year.

The champion concept is being heavily promoted following a successful trial in late 2008 that saw a sales increase of around 400% in the dealerships where it was tried. Each champion is a specialist who has responsibility for promoting service plans within their dealership.

The Warranty Group originally had plans to train 400 champions before the end of 2009, but that figure now looks as though it will be beaten.

Ian Simpson, sales and marketing director, said: “Service Plan is an excellent product but do not always fit easily into the process that a dealer sales person takes each customer through.

“By training a Service Plan champion in a dealership, we are creating the opportunity to talk to customers about service and maintenance as a separate subject.

“With the training programme now producing champions in large numbers, Service Plan sales are really beginning to take off and we expect them to be a major source of dealer profitability in 2010.”

Service Plan is a planned servicing product from The Warranty Group that dealers can offer to customers, breaking down the cost of routine car servicing into monthly payments made by direct debit.