The Irish examiner published an article in January (2013) with key findings related to the automotive sector:
- Car sales slumped by more than 12% in 2012
- 76,256 new private cars were licensed in 2012 — down 10,676 vehicles on the previous year’s total. (CSO)
This reduction in sales has motivated the automotive sector to invest in Market Research.
“Automotive Sector benefit from Mystery Shopping, Customer Satisfaction Surveys and Benchmarking exercises to increase sales”
Benefits of performing Market Research exercises in the automotive sector
Mystery Shopping:
This market research exercise measures the customers’ buying experience
Mystery shoppers would act like typical buyers and approach a car dealer. They would perform specific tasks such as a driving test and act in a certain way in order to analyse results. They would then provide detailed reports or feedback about their experiences.
Mystery shopping in the car industry helps to:
- Evaluate employees performance
- Detect service weakness
- Improve processes
- Compare different employees and/or location
- Evaluate the “showroom”
Customer Satisfaction Surveys:
Customer satisfaction surveys are a vital tool in measuring, what your customers really think of you and which can be a very valuable referral tool.
Customer Satisfaction surveys in the car industry help to:
- Evaluate dealer network performance
- Discover if sales strategies are working
- Evaluate Dealer Product knowledge
- Gain knowledge of Car Buying Experience
- Learn about Buyer profile versus car range (“best fit”)
Customer feedback is a key element in profiling customers and it contributes to the improvement of service and product oferings.
Benchmark exercises
Benchmarking is the process of comparing one’s business processes and performance metrics to industry bests or best practices from other industries. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. Car dealers can use this market research to evaluate themselves against their peers and competitors.
Benchmarking exercises in the car industry help to:
- Improve processes
- Learn new ways to improve performance
- Update sales and marketing strategies
- Gain industry knowledge
- Discover industry best practices
Benchmarking exercises, customer satisfaction surveys and mystery shopping exercises allow the automotive industry to gain a greater insight into the procedures and processes that “work” and in turn improve sales.
Whether your clients buy a 131 or a 132 let’s find out how they got on and when are they coming back for a visit to your showroom !!
If you have a market research project in mind, contact us!
