Increasing complexity rewards a knowledgeable sales staff.

Knowledge is mentioned in 19% of positive sales experiences, the #5 topic, 29% more often than the positive benchmark for the entire dataset.

Insight

• As mentioned earlier in the text analysis of staff, “clarity of features and options” is a regularly mentioned topic. Shoppers rely on sales staff to educate them on the vehicle, and when done properly, dealers are rewarded with reputation accolades.
• When comparing positive mentions of knowledge in sales to positive mentions of the same topic in service, the gap widens to 63%. Put another way, with the Widewail database filtered for sales scenarios, mentions of knowledge in a positive context occur 63% more often than in a similar service scenario.

At 81%, the mention percentage of sales staff in positive reviews is the highest topic in the report.

Staff are mentioned in positive sales reviews 25% more often than in service scenarios.

Insight

• Filtering our dataset for reviews related to sales experiences, positive mentions of staff occur 35% more often YoY, and negative reviews mention staff 27% more YoY.
• When we stack positive mentions of topics in a sales context next to a service context, the team's knowledge sticks out dramatically as a driver of positive experiences. Mentioned in 19% of positive sales reviews, knowledge is mentioned 63% more often than in services reviews, which only comes up in 12% of reviews.
• Helpfulness comes up 44% more often in positive sales reviews vs service, professionalism +32%.

Positive mentions of price/cost in sales are trending up, negative mentions are trending down.

Price is mentioned in 5.5% of positive sales reviews, 60% more often than positive service. In negative reviews, price is mentioned in 19% of sales reviews, 17% more than service.

Insight

• At the industry level, we see very little movement in price sentiment from 2023 to 2024. In sales, we see small (6.4%) but positive YoY trends.
• In sales scenarios, price positivity is up 6.4% YoY, while negativity is down 3.8%. Small but undeniably in the right direction, given some of the improvements in affordability observed in 2024.
• Service pricing is trending in the wrong direction (positive down, negative up). Our theory: with the average age of a vehicle on the road increasing from 9.5 years in 2003 to 13 years in 2023, car owners are more often running into expensive services like brakes, engine, and transmission. When looking at reviews that mention those three services, we see growth YoY — brakes (+30%), transmission (+35%), engine (+35%).

Mentioned in 12% of positive service reviews, communication is mentioned 24% more often in this scenario than in comparable sales reviews.

Insight

• Communication, the #1 driver of negative reviews industry-wide, is also the number 4 driver of positive service reviews, behind staff, friendliness, and helpfulness.

When comparing wait time mentions in service to sales reviews, the topic is mentioned in 84% more positive service reviews and 60% more negative service reviews.

Insight

• Although the 2023 Cox Automotive Buyer Journey Study reports that the average buyer spends nearly three hours on the lot to make a purchase, customer reviews mention wait time extensively in reference to a service experience.
• In 2024, service wait times were mentioned in 20.8% of negative reviews, 7.2% less than in 2023.
• Wait times are mentioned in 8.2% of positive service reviews in 2024, 32.4% more often than the industry benchmark.

Negative mentions of Price/Cost occur in 16.4% of negative service reviews, 17% below sales and 12% below the industry benchmark.

Insight

• YoY, negative mentions of price/cost in service reviews increased just 2.24%.
• Mention of price is much less common in positive service reviews in 2024, mentioned in 3.4% of reviews, 60% less often than positive sales reviews.

Inventory negativity less. For positives, deals and staff outperform ICE.

When filtering our database for reviews specific to hybrid models, we observe notable topic developments from 2023 to 2024 grouped into four sections: more negativity, less negativity, more positivity, and less positivity. With this, we can narrow 27 topics to just the eight that show the most variation between hybrid and ICE experiences.

Insight

• In Q2 '24, hybrid sales increased to 9.6% of the total market share, a 31% increase over the same quarter in 2023. Hybrids have had a particularly strong year, acting as an intermediate step between ICE and BEV, as buyers are unwilling to adopt full electric at the pace the industry had hoped for a few years ago. From a customer experience perspective, we find that in 2024, there was strong positivity growth in deals offered, paired with declines in pricing and inventory negativity, to paint a picture of a sales experience that improved YoY in lockstep with sales growth.
• On the contrary, we find substantial negativity growth for staff, service department, and repair, as well as a 9% positivity decline in communication.

Knowledge and helpfulness key issues for BEV. Less repair and price negativity. Greater deals positivity, less professionalism.

When filtering our database for reviews specific to BEV models, we observe notable topic developments from 2023 to 2024 grouped into four sections: more negativity, less negativity, more positivity, and less positivity. With this, we can narrow 27 topics to just the eight that show the most variation between BEV and ICE experiences.

Insight

• When filtering our database for reviews specific to BEV models, we observe notable topic developments from 2023 to 2024 grouped into four sections: more negativity, less negativity, more positivity, and less positivity. With this, we can narrow 27 topics to just the eight that show the most variation between BEV and ICE experiences.
• The theme of increased complexity challenging staff in 2024 is particularly pronounced in EV.
• Negative mentions of "knowledge" occur in EV reviews 76% more often. "Helpfulness" 73% more often. Both imply that dealership teams are not yet able to fully provide all of the information the EV buyer is after in the moment.
• The good news is that negativity is significantly lower for repair and price, paired with a nice boost in positive mentions of dealers for EV buyers. EV incentives are still having a positive impact on customer experience, paired with more EV competition, helping to bring prices into comfortable ranges.