We just launched our 2024/2025 reports. The 2025 Brand Reputation Scorecard and the 2024 Voice of the Customer Report are now live.

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The Widewail Automotive Reputation Index is Updated for Q1

It’s a big day! The Widewail Automotive Reputation Index (WARI) is now updated with Q1 reputation data for ~18,000 dealerships.

Q1 data on the key reputation metrics industry-wide:

Volume per month per location: 10.7 (-8.5%)

Rating per month: 4.43 (-3%)

Negative Percentage: 9.1% (-2%)

Response Percentage: 87.5% (-4%)

Performance has pulled back compared to 2024 averages, but after a strong March, only slightly.

The market posted median ratings of 4.7 in February and March, so I expect the rating to continue rising as we enter the summer. 

Tariff pushback may pull that number back down as we head into Q3-Q4, but we don’t know how dramatic the impact will be on consumer sentiment. We plan to begin reporting on this next month in the Widewail Q1 2025 Voice of Customer Report.

Find your dealership’s updated Q1 reputation data.

EXPLORE

Pricing Negativity Typically Drops in Q2

We are in the thick of Q2. Which typically comes with a wave of tax-refund-driven purchases and related incentives. 

Historically, we have seen this impact in the data, with price negativity in Q2 temporarily dropping in both 2023 and 2024. 

But, a drop in negative sentiment does not always convert into positive sentiment. The chart on the right shows this clearly — while positive reviews mentioning price have been gradually increasing over the past two years, there are no clear Q2 spikes.

This data point does a great job illustrating why dealers need to assess their customer experience with positive and negative metrics graded independently. A drop in negativity is a win, but in this case and many others, it does not translate into positive sentiment. Driving positive sentiment typically requires optimization in other areas, like staff, helpfulness, friendliness, and knowledge.

In negative reviews, you should optimize for communication, staff, repair quality, and wait times.

Optimize each of these parts of your customer experience with a different set of target metrics to best measure the effectiveness of your efforts.