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.
Explore newly refreshed Widewail Automotive Reputation Index data.
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Rank
13/15 YoY Review Volume Leaders See Drop in Negativity
The Automotive Reputation Index is refreshed this month with 2024 data.
We added new metrics:
This is incredible for one simple reason: we can see who is making stellar gains in 2024.
For this ranking, I sorted by:
VOLUME: MONTHLY 2024, 9->1
VOLUME: MONTHLY 2023, >10
I filtered for greater than 10 reviews/month in 2023 to limit the set to dealers that had active reputations last year.
What I noticed:
I also noticed that in 13/15 instances, huge increases in review volume come with large drops in negativity. This emphasizes our view that more reviews equals higher ratings because you’re tapping into the silent, satisfied majority.
Take a look:
Explore
CDK Shutdown 3 Months Later
We did a 7-day post-CDK-shutdown customer review analysis for REV #011 two months ago. The impact was dramatic, but the timeframe was brief.
In my mind, it deserves another look now that some time has passed.
The results remain dramatic.
The data below consists of 430,000 dealership reviews at an industry level, not just CDK-backed dealers.
Negativity Spikes, Volume Craters
Right after the attack, we saw a big spike in negative reviews.
*Widewail calculates negativity as the percentage of reviews that are 3-stars and under.
Before the shutdown, negative reviews hovered around 8% for most of 2024. But as soon as CDK’s systems went down, that number shot up to 14% (75% growth).
And it wasn’t just the sentiment that took a hit. Review volume also plummeted, from an average of 11 reviews per week down to less than 5.
It took until mid-August for the volume to bounce back. We can take another view of the data with the 7-day rolling average.
Recent performance is encouraging. Although the interruption was temporary, the negative commentary in late June/early July is now a permanent fixture of CDK dealer reputations.
Topic Analysis: Staff & Communication
Using advanced AI tools to analyze review content, we can dig into what people were complaining about.
Unsurprisingly, communication was a challenge. Typically, around 37% of negative reviews mention frustrations with communication.
After the attack, that number crept up to 42%.
At first glance, this may not seem like a significant shift, but that conclusion is incorrect.
Here’s some context: When researching this topic for our 2024 Brand Reputation Scorecard, we found that negative mentions of communication for all 32 OEMs were between 32% and 43%, which amounts to a 15% swing on either side of the benchmark. For the negative mention percentage to move 15% in 2 weeks is a major impact.
Negative mentions of staff react similarly, bouncing between 19-22% in the months prior to the attack, before quickly rising to 24% in early July.
By August, we consistently see a course correction, but negativity is still far above pre-attack levels at the end of our dataset.
VISUALIZE
Impact Peaks 2-3 Weeks Later
More REV next month. Reports season is coming up fast. Next week Q3 ends, and so does our data collection period.
We will release the 2024 Voice of the Customer Report in December and the 2025 Brand Reputation Scorecard in January.
We've got some exciting updates planning for this year. Stay tuned.
See you next month - Jake, Marketing @Widewail