Slightly over one in three car buyers rated their car dealer’s service levels either very good or excellent in a poll of 1,063 people by market research company EDM in March.
This was substantially above the 8% who described service levels as poor or worse, and even more than the 20% who said it was average.
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Of those who had poor or worse experiences with dealers, almost half (45%) said the dealer had given them incorrect information. This would equate to approximately 40 people out of the just over 1,000 who were interviewed.
Other problems included staff not knowing their products very well (28%), the process being too paper based and long-winded (20%) and incorrect details of the consumer in question (15%).
The importance of good customer service was emphasized in the survey. 86% of those who had received bad service said they would not return to that marque or dealer again.
Matt Collinge, associate director of automotive at EDM said: "Our research shows a significant percentage of people buying cars find the experience very frustrating because of poor information management from dealers. Having the correct information on a customer, and the speed and efficiency of the sales process, is obviously very closely correlated to how customers rate the service they received.
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By GlobalData"The impact of not getting this right can be hugely significant. Our research shows that 34% of people avoid going to certain car dealers or marques because they have a reputation for poor customer service."
