Aussie auto sector failing customers

AUSTRALIA’S automotive industry fared second-worst – ahead only of telecommunications – in a customer experience survey encompassing 192 major companies across seven sectors.

The latest results from Australian customer experience consultancy CSBA’s quarterly ‘SenseCX’ benchmarking program reveal that much improvement is needed among automotive players, which following six consecutive quarters of decline, lag most other sectors in terms of customer satisfaction.

Declining customer experience results in the automotive sector are contrary to trends across other industries, where CSBA says results are “more stable or have seen improvement”.

SenseCX reports measure the quality of customer interactions with an organisation’s contact centre against three factors – Ease, Sentiment, and Success – with independent assessments by CSBA specialists conducted via telephone conversations.

The latest study found that customer interactions from nine automotive companies placed “firmly in the bottom half of the overall rankings”.

As a sector, the automotive industry achieved a 50.5 per cent median result, with the average score for the top-five performers just 53.6 per cent. Only the telecommunication sector fared worse.

Compared with the education sector, where the median benchmark sits at 58.2 per cent, and the top-five performers at 78.4 per cent, the automotive sector shows considerable room for improvement.

Interestingly, and according to CSBA’s survey results of participating entities, Great Wall Motors (GWM) outpaced Toyota, Volkswagen, Audi and Kia in terms of outright customer satisfaction. GWM set a high score of 55.9 per cent over the (unnamed) lowest performer’s 44.6 per cent score.

Although GWM fared better than many others – further including Hyundai, Lexus, Mazda, Nissan, and auto parts supplier Meritor – the result shows there is still plenty of ground to be made.

“Customers want their interactions with providers to be easy, effective and engaging,” explained CSBA managing director Paul van Veenendaal.

“In the interactions that CSBA assessed, behaviours that drive Ease scores were sorely lacking.”

Mr van Veenendaal said automotive sector agents did not instil a sense of ownership and buy-in around the customer’s enquiry and did not bring any additional value to the conversation to differentiate themselves from competitors.

In the Ease portion of assessment, the automotive sector scored an average of just 31.3 per cent compared with 44.3 per cent in the education sector, 36.2 per cent in the utilities sector, 34.4 per cent in the financial services sector, and an outright average of 36.5 per cent.

Mr van Veenendaalsaid it is a similar trend when looking at Success scores, which averaged just 58.2 per cent across the automotive sector, or 2.6 per cent below the surveyed average. In stark comparison to automotive, the top-five performers surveyed scored an average of 83.4 per cent in the view of the customer.

According to the results of the SenseCX report, customer service agents in the automotive sector offered only basic responses to customer’s questions, with just one in five capable of “fully understanding the customer’s needs” and less than two-thirds capable of providing a “thorough and detailed response”.

“Critically, in less than half of the interactions assessed, was there evidence that agents attempted to manage their customer’s expectations around timelines and outcomes, a key behaviour in light of the industry’s supply chain issues,” said Mr van Veenendaal.

The changing nature of customer expectations means that the quality of customer interactions in the automotive sector must match or exceed the experiences customers have when interacting with other organisations.

It becomes all the more critical given Australia’s automotive sector is evolving at a pace not seen since the heady days of the 1960s, with more brands entering the market than at any time in the past and with the availability of new energy vehicles challenging once-familiar models.

This brings more pressure than ever for established players to up their game.

When customers converse with someone working under a brand – whether they be in a central contact centre or through the dealership network – that customer should know that they can expect consistent, high-quality interactions that are successful, easy, and that leave them feeling positive about the brand.

Mr van Veenendaal said the most recent CSBA study shows that the industry “could benefit from investing in its frontline staff in order to meet the ever-evolving expectations of its customers”. 

He also emphasised that the importance of so-called ‘soft skills’ during customer interactions could not be understated.

Assessed under the Sentiment banner by CSBA, the automotive sector is loosely on par with the overall average (62.5 per cent compared to 64.4 per cent), but considerably behind the top-five performers (who average 86.8 per cent).

Seemingly straightforward behaviours that aim to make the customer feel valued as an individual scored poorly.

“Only one in five agents that we spoke to used the customer’s name, and only one in ten created a personalised moment with the customer, to try to develop the sort of personal connection that leads to brand loyalty,” said Mr van Veenendaal.

He suggests improved training and investment in staff is made as a priority to repair the ease with which automotive sector customers interact with brand representatives, the successful outcome of any interaction made at every contact opportunity, and the overall sentiment with which the brand is viewed by the customer improved.

Benchmark and Top Performer by sector (Q2, 2023):

Automotive sector SenseCX index scores (Q2, 2023):

*Statistics provided by CSBA.