Keyloop Mystery Shops: current, anonymised, exclusive
The automotive industry is changing fast. To stay relevant, manufacturers and retailers need to have a clear picture of what’s going on. Mystery shops are a key tool in helping to highlight what is happening today in order to create the seamless, data-driven experiences that consumers want.
As one of the largest global automotive technology companies, Keyloop has the overview and reach to use mystery shopping to its full advantage, comparing the current state of the industry across multiple markets. In a 2023 report on lead responsiveness, mystery shop results from 10 different countries showed a gap of almost 4.5 hours between the fastest and slowest average response times. By separating out results for OEM leads and retailer leads, we were able to uncover even more interesting trends. Let’s take a look.
What the stats show
Keyloop’s mystery shops were conducted in 10 countries within mainland Europe – Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal and Spain, South Africa, the UAE, and the UK. At a glance, the key takeaways are:
• On average 55% of leads did not receive a response of any sort
• The longest average lead response time (by some margin): Portugal, at 393 minutes
• The shortest: Norway, at 126 minutes
• The highest overall non-response rates: UAE, at 83%, South Africa, 70%
• Retailers and OEMs using Keyloop Leads responded to 100% of their leads in an average of 28 minutes
It’s worth noting that even the longest response time is significantly less than the average (non-industry specific) time cited by Forbes and quoted in a 2024 ServiceBell article, which is 47 hours. It seems logical to take this as a sign that the automotive industry is becoming increasingly aware of just how crucial rapid lead responsiveness is in delivering the experience today’s customers expect.
Drilling down: OEM leads vs retailers’ own leads
One of the most significant findings from our mystery shops is the contrast between OEM leads responses and retailers’ own leads. In every country surveyed, no matter the average response time, for retailers, around a third of response times were 90 minutes or less for their own lead sources, except for South Africa where 79% of retailer leads received no response. With the exception of Norway and Spain, the OEM lead sources were more likely not to be responded to at all. In the UAE, 95% of OEM leads received no response, while Italy and Portugal showed non-response figures of 80%.
This clearly shows that retailers value their own lead sources more than the OEMs’, and it makes you consider the impact this lack of engagement could have on brand perception – especially at a time when OEMs are pushing consumers to buy direct. Overall, the picture can be improved for all lead sources. You can compare the figures here.
At a time when the consumer is looking for a better all round purchasing experience, can any lead receive a late response or be ignored altogether? As a recent Accenture report points out, with customers accustomed to seamless digital experiences in ecommerce and other industries, automotive customers increasingly expect the same kinds of personalised and omni-channel journeys when buying a car. As a result, established OEMs and retailers are having to rethink their products, business models and ways of working to stay competitive. And certainly, lead responsiveness is going to play a big part. If manufacturers don’t respond to their customers, how will they engage with them?
There are various lead capture tools on the market, ranging from simple online forms to landing pages to automatic pop-ups. These are all useful for capturing customer details – but what you really need is a guaranteed follow-up that will immediately engage the customer and start their browsing and buying experience off in a positive way. After all, if 54% of people looking to buy a car are willing to pay extra for a better buying experience, why wouldn’t you want to start that right away?
We heard feedback directly from customers that they bought from us because of the speed of our reply. From a management perspective, I have full clarity of all activity – I get the alerts and know when a lead needs attention, and I have full confidence that 100% of our leads have been responded to. Keyloop Leads is the perfect tool.
– Barry Devereux, Head of Marketing, Enniscorthy Motor Company
Keyloop Leads is a tool that guarantees no lead is missed. It pulls together customer enquiries from over 300 online sources, including the OEM, and sends them direct either to the sales team on the showroom floor or a contact centre in the retailer Group. A suite of response tools then allows the salesperson to reply using the customer’s preferred channel, for example email, telephone, text or WhatsApp. They can even include videos, brochures and photos. Using a tool like Keyloop Leads has been shown to reduce response time by 8.5 hours and increase consumer engagement by up to 32%.
Making data the driver
Today’s retailers know that data is key to business success. We’ve seen how mystery shopping can pull out where the pain points are for the customer – broadly, in this instance, a lack of responsiveness to their enquiries. Simply being aware of these statistics is a prompt to both retailers and OEMs to go further, faster, in their capturing of leads and response to them.
Looking ahead
As technology keeps on delivering even better, faster consumer experiences, so the automotive industry will have to continue to change and adapt. Mystery shopping will remain a key tool in making this happen – the more we know, the more we can harness technology to create the right solutions. Here we’ve seen how easy-to-use technology tools help retailers and OEMs respond to all their leads in a timely, high quality manner, thereby increasing the likelihood that the consumer will engage with the brand or retailer. It will be interesting to see what the 2024 figures show. In light of the move towards an agency model, will OEMs take advantage of tech-driven tools to bring their response times down and engage the customer more rapidly and meaningfully?
Check back soon for more insights.
