General Motors Corp. has received the top honor in automotive manufacturer loyalty during a presentation of the IHS Markit Loyalty Awards, presented during Automotive News World Congress. The awards, now in their 22nd year, are presented annually by IHS Markit.
IHS Markit honored winners in more than 30 categories, including General Motors for the top award, Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer – with a loyalty rate of 69.1 percent, and Ford brand for Overall Loyalty to Make – with a loyalty rate of 63.4 percent.
Automotive manufacturers and brands were recognized for superior customer retention and conquest efforts during the 2017 model year (October 2016 through September 2017). IHS Markit analysis found that, with approximately 17.5 million new vehicle registrations during the 2017 model year, 53.6 percent of customers returned to market to purchase or lease another new vehicle from the same make they already owned. This represents record loyalty rate and an increase of 0.8 percentage points from last year. New to the analysis this year is the assessment of the impact a garage mate of the same brand has on defection. A garage containing two vehicles of the same brand will return to repurchase from that brand 63 percent of the time. When the garage mate is a competitive brand then the rate of return drops 20 percentage points to 43 percent brand loyal. These data can be used to identify customers who may look loyal to a given brand, but are actually at higher risk for defection.
As a result of this additional analysis, Lincoln was found to be the brand with highest loyalty to dealer, meaning, 48.5 percent of all Lincoln owners returned to a Lincoln dealer for another Lincoln in the 2017 model year.
“Our Automotive Loyalty Awards program continues to demonstrate the focus automakers, brands and their dealer networks place on winning back and conquesting customers during a strong sales year that [has] become even more competitive,” said Joe LaFeir, senior vice president, automotive, for IHS Markit. “We are honored to recognize those industry leaders that are working to improve their loyalty efforts year over year.”
IHS Markit has developed new tools and relationships to help automakers and marketers improve the efficiency of owner retention. The company says the recent acquisition of automotiveMastermind by IHS Markit is already providing value for key customers looking for insight into business improvements down to the dealership level, and enables automakers to act on insights from intelligence delivered from the automotiveMastermind and IHS Markit portfolios, thereby improving retention rates significantly.
“As the market plateaus, insight from advanced analytics will enable OEMs and their dealers to engage with consumers more efficiently and effectively, through a better understanding of consumer buying behavior,” said Steve Had, vice president, sales and product marketing solutions, for IHS Markit.
Brand and Model Level Winners Honored for Segment and Ethnic Loyalty
Ford achieved the highest loyalty rate of all makes during the 2017 model year, winning the Overall Loyalty to Make award. The award for Highest Conquest Percentage for the 2017 model year went to Jeep.
Toyota was honored for highest Ethnic Loyalty to Make among all ethnic groups combined, as it led in loyalty among all three ethnic groups – African American, Hispanic and Asian.
Buick was named for Most Improved Loyalty to Make for the model year and Jaguar was recognized for Most Improved Conquest Percentage during the 2017 model year.
IHS Markit also recognized 24 segment-level winners for the 2017 model year for their efforts to bring customers back for another vehicle of the same make and model.
A complete list of winners from the program is as follows:
