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Secret Shoppers: Traditional Dealers Better at Selling EVs
July 2022
Traditional automakers who sell both electric vehicles (EVs) and gasoline-powered cars provide a better shopping experience than EV-only startups, according to a new study.
Pied Piper Management Company is a research firm that uses secret shoppers to evaluate customer satisfaction at car dealerships.
The company inquired about 1,657 luxury cars online between July 2021 and June 2022 for its annual Prospect Satisfaction Index study. It followed up with in-person visits (for automakers that operate dealerships) or phone calls (for those who sell only online) for about 1,096 of the cars.
Secret shoppers compared the helpfulness and responsiveness of sales staff at 25 luxury car brands.
The result? Cadillac provided the best shopper experience, followed by Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz. EV-only startup Rivian provided the worst, with similar online retailers Polestar and Lucid not far behind.
