Welcome to the REV. A briefing that goes deep into the Widewail Automotive Reputation Index data, surfacing the most interesting insights. Every 3 weeks we Rank, Explore & Visualize automotive reputation & sentiment data.
All data is sourced from the Widewail Automotive Reputation Index (unless noted). The Index aggregates over 4.1 million Google reviews from 17k new car dealerships in the U.S. Customize the dataset like it's your own personal spreadsheet. Try it out. It’s free.
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EXPLORE
Del Grande Dealer Group Mini Case Study
This week, I'm doing something a little different. The Explore section only. This article has enough going on with the case study. We will add the Rank and Visualize sections back in next time.
Widewail sponsored episode #80 of the Car Dealership Guy Podcast.
It is a fun one; I recommend it. The guest was Jeremy Beaver, CEO of Del Grande Dealer Group – known locally as DGDG.
DGDG is headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley with a unique clientele: technology’s elite. The group sells 30,000 cars annually across 17 locations, totaling $1.3B in revenue.
Jeremy talks about how the Silicon Valley consumer “expects the experience of buying a car to be like everything else in their lives: heavy tech, heavy speed, heavy efficiency.”
The typical DGDG customer is highly educated, has a high FICO score, is price sensitive and has lots of cash.
DGDG customers, being well-informed on the details of the vehicles, require knowledgeable staff to help add value to the in-person shopping experience. Because of this, DGDG employs non-commissioned product specialists to support customers on the showroom floor.
Finally, this quote stood out: “85% of transactions start online and finish in-store on an iPad.”
This is all to say DGDG has an interesting business profile, and I wanted to look at its reviews.
DGDG Customer Insights
Overall, its Google reputation metrics are just below the industry average. Generating 8 reviews a month (10.4 is the benchmark) at a 4.23-star rating (4.44 benchmark).
Looking at 1,600 reviews from the last 12 months, let’s compare Jeremy’s observations to what DGDG’s customers say.
Pricing Strategy is Working
Understanding that its customer base is well-informed and price-sensitive, DGDG emphasizes accurate, well-researched, market-rate pricing on its digital properties.
Because of this, we observe DGDG achieving positive mentions of PRICE 31% more often than the industry benchmark.
(Widewail topics from our topic and sentiment analysis research are denoted by ALL CAPS.)
Educated Customers are Impressed by Product Specialists
As a reaction to a customer base with a tendency to conduct extensive research before showing up on the lot, DGDG has a specialized product specialist role that is not paid on commission.
As a result, positive mentions of KNOWLEDGEABLE staff are 22% above the benchmark.
The result suggests that DGDG’s staff and training are up to supporting a customer base that benefits from more detailed information during the buying process.
Despite its Tech-Forward Approach, Staff are Still Applauded
While DGDG prioritizes technology, attempting to make the car-buying experience more digital “like doing anything else in the consumer's life,” experiences with staff still shine.
STAFF are mentioned in 66% of positive reviews, 18% above the benchmark.
Communication is a Rare Point of Weakness
For DGDG, COMMUNICATION is mentioned in negative reviews 4% above the benchmark.
Yes, this may seem small, but hear me out.
As the #2 cause of negative reviews, reducing negativity around communication is extremely important to improving a dealership’s reputation.
Communication is intertwined with so many other components of the business: service, price, wait time etc. Fix communication and negativity decreases in multiple other places.
For example, in Lexus reviews, a world-class brand at minimizing negativity, COMMUNICATION mentioned 14% below the benchmark in negative reviews. In conjunction, Lexus also outperforms industry benchmarks in negative mentions of the service department, price, wait times and repairs.
Topic data in reviews can provide automotive a new look at consumer preferences directly from the customer's words.
Further, our approach to topic analysis offers a numeric benchmark for customer preferences at an industry scale, from which individual groups or dealerships can be evaluated in context.
On the surface, DGDG has an industry-standard reputation profile on Google. However, review volume and ratings only tell a piece of the story.
With topic analysis, a different angle emerges.
Responding to a unique market with a specific buyer profile, DGDG has built an operational strategy that works particularly well in the specific areas that matter most for its business and its buyers. Technology + pricing + knowledgeable staff working together to great effect (the group has expanded from 3 -> 17 dealerships in recent years).
Before I go, if you're new or haven't been back in a while, take a minute to explore the Widewail Automotive Reputation Index. It's a unique competitive intelligence tool covering 17,000+ dealers based on 4.1M Google reviews from 2023. And it's free to use.
We are updating it for 2024 soon and have a few new features in mind that I'm excited to share with all of you. I'll let you know on this feed when those are live.
New from our research team: the 2024 Automotive Experience Leaders. Much like this article, the Experience Leaders report bases its analysis and rankings entirely on topic analysis. This approach produces unique results compared to the Brand Reputation Scorecard, which uses reputation metrics (review volume, rating, negativity, response) to derive OEM rankings.
More REV in 3 weeks - Jake, Marketing @Widewail
