There’s satisfaction. Then there’s trust. – The Reference Mark

There might be no two words in the English language more emotionally freighted. Reciprocating this vow entails an intimate contract of honesty, liability, and concession. When given, received, and honored, trust leads to unbounded loyalty. When the bond is broken, it often leads to the incineration of the relationship.

But what does it mean to trust those with whom you do business?

Buying and owning a car is often seen as a straightforward transaction. You give money, you get sheetmetal, and you hope it doesn’t break down. You trust that the automaker’s factory had a good day and that your car will provide you years of trouble-free reliability.

Trust goes much deeper than that. Buying a car is an extremely emotional event—often the second most expensive purchase in our lifetimes, after a house.

A recent survey of car owners by marketing firms AMCI and C Space not only measured how much consumers trust automakers but also how much consumers feel trusted in turn by automakers.

The survey involved more than whether consumers felt sleazed by the salesperson or F&I agent when they bought their car. The experience in the service lane (especially when dealing with a recall, warranty claim, or extended service contract) often had more to do with long-term trust.

But let’s not slag the dealers alone. Turns out several brands’ dealers had higher trust indexes than the automakers they represented. This would be a case where a dealer shows respect and takes special care of a customer while the manufacturer might blow him or her off.

For instance, although Acura, Jeep, and Subaru received more trust at the manufacturer level than their dealers did, Kia and Chrysler dealers had higher trust indexes than the automakers themselves.

Why does this matter? A recent study by big-data giants IHS Markit found that out of the 17.5 million new-vehicle registrations during the 2016 model year, only 53 percent of customers returned to the same brand they already owned. Just barely half stay loyal—and IHS says this is the best level they’ve recorded. So for all the automakers’ efforts to keep owners devoted, it’s the same odds as a coin flip.

“Think of all the money automakers spend on quality and satisfaction, and yet the industry keeps paying people incentives to buy their cars,” says AMCI chief strategy officer Ian Beavis. “Satisfaction doesn’t get you to intend to purchase again. Trust does.”

Beavis knows a thing or two about automakers and consumers. His career has spanned marketing and product planning posts for Ford, Kia, and Mitsubishi. He’s also been in the executive suites of advertising giants Nielsen; Carat; Saatchi and Saatchi; and Foote, Cone & Belding.

Beavis posits that quality and satisfaction have become commodity items that no longer move the needle. But other industries have proven that trust does.

So how do you build that trust?

Beavis says one big trust-breaker is when dealers upsell unnecessary additional items (such as polishing the muffler bearings) when folks go in for routine service. So while the service manager pats himself on the back for a quick score, the brand just lost a customer who could have spent tens of thousands of dollars down the road. The same goes for when a manufacturer denies a fix-it claim for a car a couple months past (but many miles under) the warranty expiration.

According to the survey, the intensity of trust is based on feeling special and receiving personalized, respected treatment—regardless of the retail location, the size of the store, or the cost of the product.

When compared to other industries rated by C Space, automakers fare only slightly better than telecom, the government, the media, healthcare firms, financial services, and department stores. That’s not great company to keep.

“The human interaction is key,” Beavis says. “When you go to a dealer who has really good people skills, isn’t it the most marvelous experience? There’s still tremendous possibility of human interaction and brand intimacy.”

For an industry so intently focused on things gone wrong, it might be better instead to look at the emotional connectivity of things gone right.

Trust me on this one.

More by Mark Rechtin:

• Why the Tesla Model Isn’t Replicable 
• Have We Hit Peak Auto Sales in the U.S Market?
• What a Trump Presidency Means For the Auto Industry…and you

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