What did we learn at the Auto Trader Retailer Awards 2022?

On the 12th October we came together to celebrate the very best of our industry at the Auto Trader Retailer Awards 2022.

We revealed this year’s winners (and you can find out who they are here) and shared our latest market insights including exactly what we found in our extensive mystery shopping campaign.

So, what did we learn at this year’s awards about our industry?

Demand is solid

There have certainly been some negative headlines about the automotive industry, but our data tells a different story as we revealed at this year’s awards.

Overall consumer confidence is at its lowest point since the 2020 lockdown yes. But we are not seeing signs of this drop in confidence in our sector. In fact, our latest consumer research revealed that eight in ten consumers are either more confident, or about the same as a year ago.

And that’s not all. Demand is currently up by 17% compared to pre-pandemic levels indicating that the buyer’s are certainly still out there.

Sales are down, but where there’s stock, it sells

We have seen an overall decline in used car sales. But this is not because of a lack of demand, rather it is driven by ongoing stock shortages, with stock availability far below 2019 levels.

In fact what we have seen is that sales of older vehicles, where stock is plentiful, are in fact above 2019 levels. As you can see in the chart below, sales of 5-10 year old vehicles are indexing higher vs Q3 2019 as are over 15 year old vehicles. The reverse is true for vehicles under 3 years old, an age band we know is constrained by the volume of available stock.

We are still seeing stock commanding a premium with prices still far above what we would expect. Prices right now are actually, on average, £2,000 above what we expected. Recent months have also seen prices buck normal seasonal trends, with prices normally falling in September on a month-on-month basis. Last September saw prices remain flat and still far above pre-pandemic levels.

The mystery shopping process

Each year we run a comprehensive mystery shopping programme, designed to analyse the customer experience at the top 1000 retailers on Auto Trader based on online performance and stock turn.

This programme consists of an email, telephone call and, for the first time, a full audit of a retailer’s digital car buying process. These three phases are run and scored by an independent agency.

 Are standards slipping?

The email and telephone phases saw some great behaviour by those retailers entered into the process. 23% of customers in the email phase received a personalised response in 30 mins or less and we saw vast improvements in how retailers were welcoming customers over the phone and capturing their data.

But…

For the first time ever, we saw an overall decline in performance in both phases, with email performance down 3.5% and telephone performance down by 4.1%.

When it comes to email, the biggest declines were seen in personalisation and acknowledging a customer’s specific enquiry, with less than 60% of customers having their enquiry acknowledged compared to nearly 70% in 2021.

Volume of customers not receiving a personalised response

 It’s important to always focus on delivering personal service to customers at every touch point and it’s clear we have seen a decline in some of the positive personalisation behaviours we have seen in previous years.

On the phone, we saw a significant drop in retailers explaining next steps to customers and helping them to understand how they can continue their car buying journey, behaviours that are needed to help guide buyers to purchasing from you.

Dealers are going digital, but follow up needs focus

The final phase saw our mystery shoppers go through an online journey of buying a car, scoring retailers adverts, Retailer Stores page and scoring their interactions with the retailer including whether they received a video as requested.

We can see below that retailers are nailing their digital presence, but more needs to be done when it comes to video and following up on enquiries by phone.

Scores by section in the final phase of our mystery shopping programme.

We clearly learnt some hugely positive things at this year’s Auto Trader Retailer Awards but, as always, there is room to improve. Our teams are on hand to help you through the remainder of 2022 and have host of tips on how you can address the areas for improvement highlighted in this year’s myserty shopping programme, ensuring you have the best chance for success in the months ahead.