More Reviews, More Complaints: The Double-Edged Sword of Customer FeedbackMore Reviews, More Complaints: The Double-Edged Sword of Customer Feedback

Automotive consumers are submitting more online reviews of car dealers, which also has led to more negative comments creeping in.

That’s according to Widewail’s second annual study. It used artificial intelligence to analyze 8.1 million Google reviews across 18,000 U.S. franchised auto dealers.

There were 18% more consumer reviews of automobile retailers posted in 2024 than in 2023. There was also a 20% increase in negative reviews centered on complaints about dealership staff.

But largely, dealership-reputation strategies continue to improve. And dealers overall are earning high marks. The latest industry average is 4.56, up from 4.44 in 2023 on a scale of 5.

Communication issues with both sales and service departments are the main complaints in most negative reviews, says Matt Murray, CEO and founder of Widewail, a reputation-management, technology and services company.

The takeaway there seems to be “focus on the fundamentals,” he tells WardsAuto. “Like contacting service customers to tell them their car is ready rather than waiting for the customer to call.”

Of course, most dealerships strive for positive reviews. But an upside of critical ones is that they can help a dealership identify and fix the operational deficiencies consumers cite.

Incoherent rants don’t help much, but constructive criticism does. The latter “is worth paying attention to,” says Jake Hughes, Widewail’s marketing director.

Communications dubiously rank as No.1 among reviewers’ top five negative mentions (up 6.4% in 2024), followed in descending order by staff, car maintenance and repairs, wait times and management.

The top five topics drawing mentions in positive reviews are staff, helpfulness, friendliness, knowledge and communication. (The list indicates the so-called soft skills of friendliness and helpfulness have their place in satisfying car shoppers.)

The report’s “staff” topic planted itself as the most important customer-experience driver, with overall mentions increasing 15.5%, according to the Widewail report.

Customer experience in sales backslid in 2024, with 8.5% negative mentions of the department and a 3.1% drop in positive comments compared with 2023.

What Goes Wrong?

Murray cites a couple of reasons for the drop in positive reviews and the increase in negative ones for the sales department.

First: “With the recent inventory shortages, dealers had charged MSRP (manufacturers' prices), and the customers paid it,” he says. “Now, negotiations and incentives are back, meaning salespeople are dealing with complexities that could affect customer satisfaction.”

Second: The report indicates dealers should enhance training for selling electric vehicles.

“Salespeople are largely not up to speed in selling vehicles with non-traditional powertrains,” Murray says.

For example, there were 76% more negative reviews in salespeople’s knowledge of EVs than positive reviews from people buying vehicles with internal-combustion engines.

Why Dealers Should Review Concerns

In today’s world, some people complain of “review fatigue” because they are asked to rate so many transactions.

But Murray contends auto dealership reviews are different from reviews of other retailers, because vehicles are big-ticket products with relatively long buying cycles and require multiple steps in the purchase transaction.

“Purchasing an automobile is an expensive proposition that requires a lot of consideration and is consummated by a transaction with a real human being,” he says.

In that respect, it’s good for dealer principals to know what customers think about their stores.

Through reviews, every dealership customer has the potential to become either a strong advocate or a harmful detractor.