Survey: Dealership Professionalism Often Trumps Price

Customer treatment often trumps price at car dealerships, a new study says.

Dealership behavior matters a lot in determining if a shopper accepts a particular deal, according to data from CarWoo.com, an automotive marketplace website.

Its study, using transactional and behavioral data, shows that 54.6% of the time the lowest price offer was not the one the buyer took.

That increases to 57.5% when eliminating cases where buyers received only a single offer.

Behavioral data also indicate price is not what drives buyers' opinions expressed in online reviews of their dealership experience.

In giving 5-star reviews, highly satisfied buyers ranked dealer professionalism as the most important factor 47% of the time and price only 14%.

When dissatisfied buyers gave dealers 1-star reviews, they cited unprofessionalism as the reason 44% of the time, blamed price only 19% of the time.

Only when buyers gave middling 3-star reviews did price become the driving factor, ranked as primary 52% of the time. These reviews, while ostensively “neutral,” were often negative in tone, much more akin to a grade of a “D” than of a “C,” CarWoo says.

An analysis of all available data shows four major elements that go into the car-buying decision. In order of importance, these are:

Dale Pollak is founder of vAuto, developer of an inventory-management software system that tracks regional demand for vehicles so dealers can stock and price accordingly.

Pollak made his mark on the industry by advocating what he calls “velocity” pricing, which uses inventory-management to price cars right the first time.

A dealer needn't offer the lowest prices in town, but rather ones that are competitive in that market, he says.