CAR-Research XRM, provider of a single-source CRM solution called “XRM, Extreme CRM,” said it had identified the top reasons car buyers leave a dealership without buying a vehicle, as a result of a study it conducted from January to December 2012.
The survey, which was carried out by the company’s Certified Research Call Center, polled 167,503 customers from more than 150 dealerships across the U.S. The findings showed that the top reason customers leave without buying is that they are still shopping and have not been sold on that dealership. Of respondents, only 19 per cent went on to purchase elsewhere, meaning that 81 per cent of them were presumably still in market at the time of the interview.
In response to the question, “Why did you leave the Dealership?” the generic answer “still shopping” was uttered by 25 per cent of respondents and ranked as the highest reason given. However, a full 48 per cent of customers surveyed provided additional detail as to why they left the dealership without buying, with price, financial inventory and style rounding out the top five reasons given.
From the study, the top 12 reasons customers left the dealership without purchasing a vehicle were listed as follows:
- Still Shopping: 25 per cent
- Price: 15 per cent
- Financial: 13 per cent
- Inventory: 10 per cent
- Style: 10 per cent
- Payments: 5 per cent
- Other: 5 per cent
- Sales Staff Issues: 4 per cent
- Trade: 4 per cent
- Decision Maker Absent: 3 per cent
- Time Constraints: 2 per cent
- Negative Equity: 1 per cent
Additionally, the study concluded that:
- Items that ranked from 2-5 (Price, Financial and Inventory): The Top three reasons for not buying accounted for 38 percent of the reasons cited by customers for leaving a dealership without purchasing a vehicle.
- The majority of customers surveyed did receive road-to-sale process steps while at the dealership, including product presentation (79 per cent), demo drive (62 per cent), service introduction and walk (38 per cent), and manager TO interview (52 per cent).
“According to J.D. Power and Associates, today’s shoppers only visit 1.4 dealerships before purchasing a vehicle, a trend that’s significantly down from 4.5 in 2005,” remarked Patrick Kelly, CAR-Research president and COO. “Showroom visitors come to the first dealership they visit more ready to buy than at any other time in modern car sales history. In other words, it’s not about be-backs anymore, it’s about being first. And our own data from over four years shows that the ones that do leave for other dealerships left because of financing, inventory, and price.”
