Case Study: Automotive Dealership Mystery Shopping Across 100+ Showrooms
- Industry
- Automotive
- Duration
- One nationwide assessment round
- Client
- Vehicle brand
- Service
- Mystery Shopping
The Business Issue
A vehicle brand sells through a network of independently run dealerships. The brand sets the standard for how a showroom should look, how a consultant should advise a buyer, and how prices and promotions should be presented, but the buyer’s experience is delivered by dealer staff the brand does not employ.
With more than 100 showrooms nationwide, the brand had no consistent way to see whether its standard held from one dealer to the next. A buyer who meets an unprepared consultant, an unclear price or a promotion explained differently from the advertising may leave for a competitor, and the brand never learns why. The brand needed an independent, network-wide measure of the sales experience.
The Techniques
- Mystery Shopping
Iconic Research ran a mystery shopping programme across the brand’s network of more than 100 showrooms nationwide.
- Buyer scenarios. Researchers visited as prospective car buyers, so each visit followed a real purchase conversation from arrival to price discussion, including a request for a test drive.
- Six assessment areas. Each visit was scored on showroom experience, sales consultation, vehicle presentation, pricing transparency, promotional offers and overall sales performance.
- Scoring against the brand’s standard. Every criterion was taken from the brand’s own dealer standard, so results showed compliance with what dealers had agreed to deliver, not a researcher’s opinion.
- Nationwide coverage. Visits covered the full network, in Bangkok and the provinces, so dealers could be compared on the same criteria wherever they were.
The Results
The brand received a consistent, dealer-by-dealer view of the sales experience across its whole network, scored against its own standard. Results could be compared by dealer, by region and by assessment area, showing where the standard held and where it broke down. The brand could use the results in its dealer performance reviews and focus support on the dealers and sales steps that fell short.
Iconic Research combines dealership mystery shopping with car clinics and automotive research, so brands can test both the product and the way it is sold.
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