07 September 2020

Help provided to franchised retailers by their manufacturers during the height of the Covic-19 pandemic has been scored in the latest NFDA Dealer Attitude Survey carried out in August.

The new question asked dealers to give their satisfaction of the amount of support their manufacturer partners provided during the height of the pandemic. Lexus, Toyota and Kia came first, second and third respectively in this new chart.

The same three brands but in the order Lexus, Kia and Toyota also took the top three places in the all-important ‘How to you rate your manufacturer overall’ question.

The overall average score for this question also went up by 0.1 to 6.0 – the first time the average has been at six or higher since January 2017.

However, it was Hyundai’s last placing in this key overall question with a score of just 2.5 out of 10, down from 3.2 six months ago and down from 6.0 when Ashley Andrews took over the UK national sales company two years ago from Tony Whitehorn that shocked.

Auto Retail Agenda has already reported that there is dissension in the retailer ranks with the dealer council writing an open letter of complaint earlier this year to Mr Andrews. Details within the sections of the NFDA Dealer Attitude Survey show the Korean brand did particularly poorly around targets, profits, stocking policy, training costs and the ease with which business could be conducted on a day-to-day basis. These came despite much better scores for product and aftersales topics.

Hyundai retailers gave the manufacturer the lowest score by some margin for help during the Covid-19 crisis, too. Hyundai scored 2.7, the next nearest brand was Fiat with 3.9 and the average was 6.4 out of 10. Speaking before the survey results were known, a spokesman for Hyundai said: “We’ve had regular, weekly, meetings with our network throughout the pandemic to hear their concerns. There’s also been much better communication since the start of the year.”

Other highlights from the overall rating chart include Mini as the biggest improver with a jump of 2.0 points to 7.9, Subaru recording the fastest drop with a loss of 2.0 points to a score of 4.6 out of 10.

For a full analysis of the figures, see this week’s issue of Auto Retail Bulletin. You can sign up for a free trial here.

Tags: Dealer Attitude Survey, Hyundai, NFDA