Frequency of Dealership Reviews in Each State

This graph shows the number of reviews posted per thousand automobiles registered. Nationwide, Victoria leads the pack with its 23 reviews posted for each 1,000 registered automobiles, with Queensland and Western Australia not far behind. On the other end of the spectrum, Tasmania is last at just 7 reviews per 1,000 registered automobiles. These discrepancies may be attributed to the various demographic differences between these states.

For one thing, certain states may have more competitive car markets due to greater population and income levels. This would result in dealerships focusing more on the customer experience and providing maximum client satisfaction, which would prompt more reviews. In contrast, states with less competitive markets are less concerned about their online ratings, since reviews would not be as impactful for attracting customers.

Additionally, states with many urban centres have a more digitally connected demographic who are more likely to read and write online reviews. Meanwhile, areas with an older and more traditional population are probably going to rely on word-of-mouth or personal connections when choosing where to do business.

These explanations aren’t necessarily foolproof—for instance, the Northern Territory has a fairly high amount of reviews but is a more rural area with fewer dealerships competing for market share. Nevertheless, this graph makes it easy to see trends in terms of which parts of the country are more active with leaving online reviews.

Average Dealership Rating in Each State

The average dealership rating in each state can tell you a lot, but we wanted to dig deeper. Our goal was to look at the proportion of good versus bad ratings for each state’s dealerships. We labelled dealerships as having a good rating if they had more than 4.5 stars, and said that they had a bad rating if they had fewer than 3.5 stars. Anything in between counted as an adequate rating.

Most states are pretty close to one another in terms of the average rating, but Northern Territory dealerships clearly have markedly worse ratings overall. They have a decent proportion of dealerships with good ratings, but they also have a far greater proportion of dealerships with bad ratings. On the other hand, if you’re looking for the states with the largest proportion of good ratings, Tasmania, Victoria, and Queensland win on that score.

One reason for these discrepancies could be differing market conditions from state to state. For instance, supply chain issues could have caused several dealerships in one small area to have low stock, prompting more bad reviews.

Another cause could be that residents of one state might have generally higher expectations for auto services, while other states’ residents may be more easily pleased. Additionally, we have to consider that some states have more dealerships than others, meaning a few very low-rated businesses could skew certain results.

The main takeaway here is that some areas, like the ACT, seem to have dealership service that is adequate but rarely comes across as extremely good or extremely bad. In other states and territories, people’s experiences vary more widely, with many well-rated businesses and many poorly-rated businesses.

Keywords in Reviews from High-Rated and Low-Rated Dealerships

This graph represents the most popular keywords used in online reviews of highly-rated and poorly-rated dealerships. Keywords from reviews of businesses with high ratings are expressed in yellow, while those from businesses with low ratings are shown in dark purple. The grey circles represent all reviews that contain this particular keyword.

These keywords break down into a few interesting groups. Some of them are focused on the purchasing process: could they get a test drive? Was delivery available? What was the dealership finance process like? Was the price in line with what they expected? These keywords were used by customers who focused more on the objective aspects of the review.

However, most reviewers aren’t just motivated by the facts of what happened: they’re motivated by how the experience made them feel. Professionalism is very visible as the number one most-mentioned keyword. Customers care a lot about the way that they are treated and talked to, regardless of whether or not they actually get what they came for.

Happiness and pleasure also have a huge presence in the body of reviews. Buying a car is a big event that often has people second-guessing themselves, and customers like feeling that they made the right choice and got what they wanted.

For instance, a Hyundai customer in Perth wrote that the employee behind the service counter looked miserable, which put a damper on the whole experience. Meanwhile, a customer in Victoria said that the dealership receptionist looked so depressed, they wondered if the company sold coffins instead of cars.

On the flip side, lots of customers described unique experiences that made their whole day. One Toyota dealership in New South Wales features a cockatoo that is a huge hit—some customers say they come in just to talk to him! Similarly, a Subaru dealership in Queensland gives complimentary jars of honey from their rooftop beehive. Positive interactions like these may have little effect on the car itself, but they can make a huge impact on the customer’s impression of the business.

Popular Keywords in Reviews for Each Manufacturer

This graph compares the popularity of certain keywords in each manufacturer’s dealership reviews. Certain manufacturers have substantially more usage of particular keywords. This reveals which particular aspect of the purchasing experience was most important to that company’s customers.

For example, “time” was seen in a huge number of Isuzu and MG reviews, but went almost unmentioned for all other companies. This would imply that the process timeline was unexpected or significant for these customers, while other companies’ turnaround times were unremarkable. Some reviews may be connected to a quick turnaround time while others may be discussing an unusually long amount of time to get everything in order.

Another notable keyword was “delivery,” which was used much more often by Subaru customers than Hyundai or Volkswagen customers. This suggests that Subaru’s delivery process stood out in customers’ minds and that it was a particular driving force for writing reviews. It may also be related to a specific promotion or discount offer for delivery from that particular manufacturer.

Furthermore, the words “happy” and “pleasure” had very different frequency rates across the different manufacturers. Subaru, MG, and Mitsubishi customers seemed more likely to use these words in their reviews, which would correlate with a high level of satisfaction with the overall purchase experience.

Clarification

MNY was proud to have its recent dealership research study published in the CarExpert. Car shoppers will benefit from staying informed about the current state of the marketplace. It is also useful to track differences across different states and different vehicle makes.

The article did raise questions about some of the conclusions in our report, such as Toyota being a completely budget-oriented brand and MG being a completely high-end company. Our report’s intention was to focus on the flagship vehicles and general perceptions of these companies among customer bases.

With the Toyota Corolla and Camry being two very famous and popular low-cost vehicles, we perceived Toyota as a budget brand, but it is true that they offer several high-end vehicles as well. Meanwhile, MG does indeed have low-cost vehicles account for a large chunk of their modern revenues, but their historic roots came from world-class sports cars.

We appreciate William Stopford and the CarExpert team for holding MNY’s research to the highest standard and for providing additional context and nuance to our analysis.