Volkswagen offers automotive customers the best online customer experience, vertaking Volvo for the first time in three years, according to new research.
Global Reviews has been benchmarking the customer experience of automotive websites for the last 10 years. The sites are assessed against more than 500 criteria including; the information available to prospective customer, customer support, and general site usability.
To meet basic customer experience requirements websites must achieve 55% and 69% to exceed them. The criteria are set using independent research into what customers say they want from an automotive website, and global online best practice.
The automotive benchmark measures customers experience on eight leading automotive websites including Volkswagen, Volvo, Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, Audi, Jaguar and Porsche.
The study found that Volkswagen leads the way with 66% followed by Volvo 65% and Mercedes 61%. The overall average score was 57%. This is the first time that the industry average is meeting customer expectations, but there is along way to go until they are exceeding them.
The study also looked at the quality of the experience available to prospective customers looking for new cars. The research found that for the first time most car companies are beginning to meet the basic level requirements for this category.
Volvo scored 65%, Mercedes 61%, BMW 61%, Lexus 57%, Audi 54%, Jaguar 51% and Porsche 37%.
Impressively, Volkswagen exceeded customer expectations with a score of 73% for this category. However the industry average for Content & Tools is only 47% and the average for Vehicle Owners is only 44%
Harvind Bhatti, Global Reviews General Manager, said, “This is good news for the automotive industry, but there are still significant differences between provider scores and the scores within individual websites. There is therefore still along way to go until all automotive customers, are getting the online customer experience they expect and an even longer journey until they are exceeding customer expectations online.”
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