Hachiko and The Metrics of Dealer Loyalty
By: Chris Travell
If you ever have a chance to be in Japan, go to the Shibuya Station. Once there you will see the bronze statue of Hachiko, an Akita, that is the epitome of owner loyalty. If you know the story, the owner met the dog at the end of each day at the station and even after the owner died, the dog came back to the Shibuya station every day for nine years waiting for his master’s return. That’s loyalty.
The interesting thing is, we often expect loyalty from the customers who buy our cars, but what exactly is “good” or “bad” loyalty? Is that number going up or down? Car dealers obviously want customers to return to the dealership and buy again, but are they moving the needle when it comes to dealership loyalty?
I did some analysis for you to answer these questions, and they’re important ones with direct implications for dealership profitability.
Hope you find it helpful and let me know what you think. Have a good week.
Chris
- July 17, 2012
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- Customer Experience, 2012 automotive industry, 2012 Canadian car market, 2012 US car market, automotive analysis, automotive industry, automotive marketing, car buying, car industry, chris travell, customer experience, customer satisfaction, dealer loyalty, hachiko, japan, loyalty, loyalty to dealership, maritz research, shibuya station
It’s what makes a runner always put on Nike, or a soccer player always wear Adidas or why we always by Oreos and not the no name brand. Those are small ticket items in comparison to a car. However, Simon Sinek (visionary thinker) talks about a companies “why”. He uses Apple as a prime example of a company whose “why” inspires. I think there are some companies working on this – and they need to!
Thanks for the comment. Simon Sinek is quite a guy and I believe he has some of his talks posted on the ted.com site. His “why” discussion is a very interesting one and causes you to think and, of course, Apple is a prime example of this.
hi,
i’d been interested to learn how you crunched these numbers. We did a similar exercise for our 10 store auto group and our repeat (new to new) was around 12%
Ben
The numbers I cited are based on a national new to new analysis so numbers in a particular geographic area i.e., state, city, PMA likely will vary. Some higher…some lower, but on the whole they average out to the ones I used. Hope that helps Ben.