Subaru on the road to driving recommendation

Engaged Marketing, a Brisbane-based consulting firm, has released the results from its 2013 Car Consumer Recommendation & Loyalty Study. Using the internationally renowned Net Promoter metric, the study reveals the car brands most likely to impress their Australian customers.

Third-time winner, Subaru, once again far outperformed its rivals including Ford and Holden, achieving a NPS of 38 per cent to secure its position as the 2013 cars loyalty leader in Australia. Toyota and Mazda followed with a NPS of 28 per cent and 26 per cent respectively. Overall, the Australian car industry averaged a score of 14 per cent.

Engaged Marketing CEO Christopher Roberts states that Net Promoter Score is one of the most accurate measures of customer advocacy used by top organisations worldwide.

"In such a highly competitive and involved industry, the scores across the category show a vast potential for major car brands to deliver an improved customer experience," Mr Roberts said.

"Organisations need to ensure they offer an end-to-end positive experience, as every single negative comment made about a car brand requires around four to five other positive comments to negate the damage it causes."

More than 2900 automobile owners were invited to rate their experience and the results identified consumer likelihood to recommend a brand to others. Nine of the biggest car brands in Australia were assessed in the innovative study including Subaru, Toyota, Mazda, Ford, Holden, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Hyundai.

The Net Promoter Score measures customers' likelihood to recommend an organisation on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is highly unlikely and 10 is highly likely. Those who gave their brand a score of 0 to 6 were classified as Detractors, while those who gave a 9 or 10 ranking were classified as Promoters. The Net Promoter Score is the percentage of Promoters minus Detractors.

Engaged Marketing is a strategic consultancy focused on helping businesses grow by developing fresh customer, marketing and organisational strategies. Engaged Marketing is an approved Net Promoter Score® Loyalty Partner. The complete 2013 Car Consumer Recommendation & Loyalty Study is available from Engaged Marketing.

Net Promoter, NPS and Net Promoter Score are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld