Treating communication as its own box to fix is the comfortable move. It's also why it stays at the top of the list. The number isn't telling you to talk more. It's a readout of how customers are handled.
This is the Widewail thesis. Reviews can do more for your business; there is gold in those hills if you know where to look.
Case in point, the FTC.
When the FTC warned 97 dealer groups over deceptive pricing in March, we ran the public list against the Widewail Index.
On star rating, review volume, and healthscore, the flagged stores were indistinguishable from everyone else. At the topic level, negative sentiment on price, financing, deals, and bait-and-switch ran 1.5x to 2.4x higher. Service and vehicle complaints, unrelated to the FTC's themes, showed no gap. The surface said nothing. The topics said everything.
We dig into that gap this Thursday. Melissa Terrell, Jake Hughes, and Paul Stansik walk through the pricing study, the benchmarks for each problem topic, and how to read your own Q1 2026 numbers against the Index.
Thursday, June 18 · 12 PM ET · 30 min + live Q&A
Register here
