For most people, buying a car is the biggest purchase of their lives, just after buying a property. It is all the more important that the customer receives fair and competent advice from the car dealer. But how do you find a company where you receive a friendly welcome and good advice? Which retailer offers a good price and after-sales service that is just as good? These questions are not easy to answer, after all, there are more than 2,500 car dealerships in Austria. Therefore AUTO BILD and the market research institute Statista were looking for the 250 best car dealers in Austria. A total of 2000 customers were surveyed for this, and dealers also had the opportunity to recommend a colleague. Read here who is among the best dealers in Austria.
What is behind the award “Best Car Dealer Austria 2022”?
For the first time, AUTO BILD and Statista GmbH identified the best 250 new and used car dealers in Austria in order to offer private car buyers orientation in the regional car dealership landscape with over 2,500 dealers in Austria. The top list of the best 250 car dealers was drawn up on the basis of the judgments of a broad customer survey and the recommendations of the car dealers themselves.
Who could take part in the survey?
• Customers:Customers who have bought a car within the last three years or who are currently actively seeking information about buying a new car were surveyed via an online access panel. A total of around 2,000 customers were surveyed. Participation in the surveys was of course free of charge and without any further obligations for the participants. Of course, the recommendations and ratings that have been given remain anonymous, also to AUTO BILD, and were only evaluated in aggregated form.
As a customer, you should look out for the “Best Car Dealer in Austria 2022” seal of approval. Then you have found a top dealer.
When did the surveys take place?
The customer surveys took place in July 2021 and the dealer surveys between July 2021 and August 2021.
What was asked in the survey?
The dealers were able to name all known car dealers in Austria that they would recommend to a customer. Self-nominations were of course not allowed and were sorted out in the data control and validation by Statista and thus not counted.
• Customers
The respondents were able to name all the car dealerships they know. The willingness to recommend was asked for the car dealerships with which they had already had concrete experience. In addition, customers were able to rate statements from the following four categories for each dealership:
– Advice: e.g. appearance and competence of the sales person
– Offer: e.g. transparency of information and conditions, offer of test drives and additional services
– Price: e.g. price level and willingness to negotiate on the part of the seller
– Overall satisfaction: e.g. probability of repurchase, evaluation of after-sales service
Which car dealers could be recommended and rated?
In the online surveys, dealers and private car buyers were able to recommend or rate every known car dealership, so that every car dealership has the chance to be included in the evaluation. Car dealerships with their own location in Austria were taken into account in the survey. To support the naming of the car dealerships, a longlist with over 2,500 car dealers was stored in the questionnaires. With the help of an autocomplete function, the survey participants received suitable suggestions for their input after starting the input (similar to a Google search). All car dealers who were not included in the long list could of course also be named and rated as free entries.
How were the “Best Car Dealers Austria 2022” determined?
– Number of recommendations by dealers
– Number of mentions by customers (awareness of the car dealerships)
– Willingness of customers to recommend
– Customer evaluation in the four categories of advice, offer, price and overall satisfaction
For the individual aspects of the four categories, the participants were asked how important these are to them when buying a car. On the basis of these answers, the respective aspects were weighted differently in the evaluation and converted into an overall grade (in school grades). Furthermore, a minimum number of ratings had to be achieved so that the dealership is included in the determination of the best car dealers in 2022. Subsequently, the range of new cars for each of the best 250 dealers was determined by car brand. The research to determine the respective brands was carried out via the dealer websites, the dealer search function for the individual brands, and by telephone.
Facts and figures – that’s what Statista does
Statista GmbH, founded in 2008 as a start-up, is now one of the world’s leading statistics portals with 1000 employees. Interested parties can find more than a million statistics on 80,000 topics on the website statista.com. In addition, the data experts regularly create well-founded lists of the best from many industries for AUTO BILD.
