Topic: Power: Toyota Gets Most Repeat Buyers

[Driver]

Power: Toyota Gets Most Repeat Buyers

http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?article=7824&sid=173&n=156

J.D. Power and Associates' 2004 Customer Retention Study reports that Toyota is the brand that gets the most repeat buyers. With an average of about one-half of buyers returning to a brand for a second vehicle, Toyota scores a 60.6 percent retention rate, with vehicles like the Camry and Corolla leading their individual categories. The second-ranked brand is Toyota's Lexus division, with a 59.5-percent retention rate, and Chevrolet, which holds on to 58.9 percent of its customers. The survey, based on responses from more than 171,000 new-vehicle buyers, looks also at the reasons shoppers leave brands - most often, for durability reasons, expensive maintenance, and bad service experiences.  

Toyota  60.6%  
Lexus  59.5%  
Chevrolet  58.9%  
Hyundai  57.6%  
Honda  55.2%  
Ford  54.5%  
Cadillac  52.8%  
Mercedes-Benz  51.6%  
BMW  51.4%  
Kia  50.9%  
INDUSTRY AVERAGE  48.4%  
Jaguar  48.3%  
Subaru  48.0%  
Audi  46.0%  
Saturn  45.0%  
Dodge  44.5%  
Buick  44.4%  
GMC  44.1%  
Lincoln 44.0%  
Nissan  42.3%  
Porsche  41.8%  
Land Rover  41.3%  
Acura  39.8%  
Chrysler  39.5%  
Volvo  39.3%  
Jeep  38.3%  
Mercury  34.4%  
Volkswagen  33.7%  
Pontiac 33.5%  
Mitsubishi  31.8%  
Infiniti  31.4%  
Suzuki  31.4%  
Saab  30.5%  
Mazda  23.1%  
Isuzu  7.0%  
Oldsmobile  4.9%  

Source: J.D. Power and Associates  

(Message edited by crolly on December 10, 2004)

[ghost]

whoa... Acura is down  there with Infinti too! Does returning a car in exchange for another due to lemon law counts? cus the Kia is right up there!

[Shnak]

I'll be part of the 66.3% that don't return to VW...

[safristi]

23% for Mazda... based on 626 sales....Proteges flew out Canadian dealers and the 3's & 6's are even stronger..take it these aren't Canuck Figures....Yanks abhor anything smaller than a Full Sized or a Mega SUV on UP...statistics..statistics.....if chevy is at 58% why the worries....is the chart upside down???

[jeeper]

and im part of the 38.3% that bought another Jeep

[ovr50]

Saf - these are repeat buyers, not sales per se. So, only 23% buy another Mazda after having one; nothing to do with how many P5s were sold. Brand loyalty, my friend, brand loyalty.  

I'm not surprised at Chev and Ford being up there as they have many "avid" fans (some even live here ), nor am I surprised at Toyota and Honda being high on repeats. I am one of them. Interesting how many makes are below the average line.

[Shnak]

Most surprising is Mazda. Volvo and Acura also surprise me a lot. Why are those 3 brands so low???

[quadzilla]

I always find these surveys interesting.  Only 171,000 people surveyed?  That is such a small percentage of the new car purchased population isn't it?  

It is interesting to see both Kia and Hyundai above the average though.  Good for them.

[safristi]

I realised that   Ovr,but the roads are replete with Mazdas...who is buying them ..ONLY NEW IMMIGRANTS...or NEW BUYERS...and where do they come from..other brand buyers..NO??...are the illegal Mexicans from the US cross border shopping??? something fishy about the numbers,maybe the time period was fixed to a few months...something doesn't add up IMHO.

[mark]

These ratings can be skewed by among other things, the range of vehicle lineup in the brand.  Certainly its not the only, or even the most important factor, but if there's no sensible progression (i.e. Echo -> Corolla -> Camry -> Avalon) in the lineup, then people have nothing to move up to.  For Acura, its a big jump from an EL to a TL.  Now there's a TSX to fill the gap, so one might expect Acura to move up in the next few years.
If a mfgr relies on sales of sporty coupes - this segment is dominated with flavour of the month/year - newest, fastest, stlying changes can shift the winners to the losers in a moments notice.

End of rambling.

[quadzilla]

Isn't Mazda the top car in Quebec and No.3 in Canada?  Shouldn't that help the stats?

[Drivesideways]

Another excerpt from the press release...

In addition to measuring retention rates, the study also analyzes the reasons consumers defect from the brand they own and are captured by other brands when they purchase a new vehicle. An important factor in defection is based on owners’ experiences with their previous vehicles. Owners often defect from their brand because they had problems with long-term durability, high maintenance costs or poor experiences with dealer service. Conversely, brands are often able to capture new customers with attractive rebates and incentive offers, better vehicle styling, more cargo capacity, high resale value and better fuel economy.  

The study finds that brands such as Toyota and Honda not only maintain high retention rates, but also capture more customers from other brands than they lose. For every one customer Toyota loses, it captures six from other brands. Honda gains four customers for every one it loses.  

"Subaru is an example of a brand that maintains relatively high levels of customer retention, yet currently captures fewer new customers than it loses to other brands," said Oddes. "While Subaru has been successful in attracting new customers with the Forester, it will need to rely heavily on the new models it is introducing over the next few years to offset the defection rate to other brands and to establish a healthy longevity for the brand."

[sirAQUAMAN64]

It's American. But probably not too far off from what Canadian retention would look like, with the exception of perhaps Mazda and a few select others.

Canada, by far, is Mazda's largest market in the world, penetration-wise. Huge market share compared to the comparably pitiful sales for Mazdas in the US market. None of the players above average surprise me - Hyundai owners love the value of their car, and they're very high quality now - but I expected Volvo to rank closer to Subaru.

Keep in mind, too, that for repeat purchasers, the brand must have a broad product portfolio. Honda has no pickups... VW no reasonably priced SUVs... but Toyota has more variety than just about anybody - From Echo/Corolla/Matrix/Camry/Avalon to RAV4/Highlander/4Runner/Sequoia, Tacoma/Tundras, Sienna, Celica, Camry Solara, and Prius. I'm sure I'm missing something too!

[S60]

It would be interesting to get more detail
on how JD crunches the numbers, and who is surveyed, and what is the method of the survey.

[Smainville]

For sure Mazda does much better in Canada than the US.  I read an article to that effect a while back.  Now for those people always going back to Chev or Ford for example to me means dick!  When I was fed up with my lousy Focus and seeked to trade it, the highest trade-in was at Ford dealerships.  Not everybody is willing to lose money on a car especially when you might still owe on it!  So you keep going back for more punishment, in my case  I decided to bite the bullit as there was no way a salesman was going to tell me that Fords are better for 2005, I heard that one before.  I bought japanese, my brother who is fed up with Chrysler has ordered a Corolla, a friend faithful to GM for years has just got himself an X-Trail.