RANK

Professionalism is More Important to Sales Customers than 2 Years Ago

Professionalism in the Sales Department:

Since Widewail began collecting topic data across new car dealers two and a half years ago, mentions of professionalism have increased in both positive and negative reviews.

What does this tell us?

First, when a topic sees growth for both positive and negative mentions, it signals that the topic is more important to customers overall and is rising in importance across the industry.

That said, professionalism comes up more often in positive sales reviews (15% today) and has been growing faster in positive reviews than negative—a good sign.

Service shows a similar trend over the last 2 years, but with professionalism mentioned in only 10% of positive service reviews, it’s about  33% less important in a service context than in a sales context.

Professionalism in the Service Department:

Contributing to this is the impact of staff on each department’s experience. In sales, staff is mentioned in over 80% of positive reviews. In service, just 65%. Why? The car-buying process involves more direct engagement with a salesperson. It takes more time and is more impactful on the customer than leaving your car at the service bay for an oil change. As a result, professionalism carries more weight in sales than in service. 

EXPLORE

Summer Negativity Trend Continues for 5th Year

The longest-running stat we track here at Widewail is the seasonality of negative reviews. The chart above tracks the percentage of reviews that fall between 1-3 stars in a given month. 

Generally, the auto industry hovers around 10%, which is very good. Residential real estate lands closer to 30%.

For the last 5 years, we’ve observed peaks of negativity in the summer, followed by low points in the winter. More deals, buyers, and staff vacations equal a higher operational tempo with reduced resources in the summer; the result is a (modest) increase in negativity, which we observe regularly.

Looking at the data going back to COVID, we see a sizeable drop from an average negativity of 12% during COVID to 8% today.

If we are being intellectually honest and factoring in the unique challenges of COVID, negative sentiment remained fairly steady between 2021 and 2024, hovering around 10%. Negativity appears to be down through the end of Q2 this year, but the spike typically arrives in Q3.

VISUALIZE

Ford Matching Industry-Wide Service Department Negativity Rise in Q2

Last quarter, we reported on the decrease in negative Ford service department mentions as a potential contributor to the brand’s climb in the reputation rankings in Q1.

With Q2 data flowing in, it appears the negative sentiment trends associated with Ford’s service departments this year are trending back up as the summer arrives, following a very similar curve to industry-level service department performance.

Although we haven’t released the Q2 reputation rankings as of this publishing, Ford has held its #17 spot through Q2.