Automotive Market Research and Buyer Trends Ep 13 Talking Automotive with Mark and John

We talk to Ben Sullivan at Potentiate. Ben shares insight into a wide range of customer satisfaction surveys critical to the industry, covering customer new car purchase surveys, car ownership surveys and dealership surveys. He talks about the customer satisfaction data and the importance of understanding the customer satisfaction data for marketing and advertising. He delves into some of the key metrics in terms of new car buyer profile, and types of car buyers and what percentage of the car market they make up. He makes suggestions on some of the impacts this may have on the way dealers and OEM's should approach marketing and advertising. He also shares some of the challenges that need to be overcome by automotive companies in dealing with an older car buyers and different customer car buyer categories. He addresses the topic of vehicle service levels and vehicle quality has improved substantially, but how perception "feeling", is resulting in dealers losing customers during the customer life cycle. He delves into customer retention and how the length customers are keeping cars and the impact of this. Lastly he looks at dealer satisfaction and what impact unhappy dealers has on customer satisfaction. He emphasises the importance of dealer profitability, the need for a partnership and clear communication between dealer and OEM.