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Customers prefer to be contacted by dealers via email when it comes to car sales and servicing.
For car sales 47.6% opted showed a preference for email and for servicing and MoT, 48.3% preferred email.
Telephone is the next most preferred method for consumers to be contacted, regarding both potential new car purchases (24.5%), and regarding service and MOT (19.7%) according to research from Marketing Delivery.
Text is the third most preferred method for communications from dealers, albeit by a much smaller number of people when it comes to enquiries about a potential car purchase (6.8%) compared to contact regarding service and MOT (17.3%).
It is a different story when it comes to customers contacting dealers. Consumers prefer to make a telephone call rather than send an email to contact a dealer about service or MOT work, favoured by 45.5%
This leaps to 58.3% among those aged over 55, and is lowest at 36.2% among those under 25.
Email is the second-most preferred method for outbound aftersales communications, cited by 32.4% of respondents.
However, when it comes to enquiring about a potential car purchase, email remains the most preferred method for outbound communication with a dealer (37.1% rank it first).
When it comes to enquiring about a new car purchase, face-to-face interaction with a dealer salesperson is currently the preferred route for just 16.4% of consumers. This reduces to only 12.2% in the 25-34 age category; peaks at 19.9% for those over 55.
“The clear message from the survey is the need to maintain a variety of communications channels and have the ability to accommodate the preferences of the individual,” said Jeremy Evans, managing director of Marketing Delivery.
“Communications increasingly need to be personalised – both in terms of process and content – to maximise engagement and conversion rates.”