J.D. Power has released the results of its automotive brand loyalty survey and found that pandemic restrictions made car buyers more likely to return to familiar automakers pretty much across the board.
Although the study is just in its second year, 2020 saw more loyal customers than 2019. The data company suggests that the reasons for that loyalty are pandemic-related.
“The bottom line is finding a vehicle required working closely with a dealer and, when presented with obstacles, shoppers turned to the dealer they already knew,” said Tyson Jominy, Vice President of data and analytics at J.D. Power. “As a result, the level of increased loyalty this year is remarkable.”
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Acura and Mazda were the two brands whose loyalty increased the most, with Acura seeing its proportion of returning customers rise by 7.1 percent and Mazda seeing it rise by 5.9 percent.
Subaru, though, held on to its crown as the brand with the most loyal customers, with 61.8 percent of its customers returning to the dealership. It was followed closely by Toyota and Honda.
Lexus, meanwhile, was the premium brand with the most returning customers. Its total of 51.6 percent put it safely ahead of Porsche, with 50.2 percent, and Mercedes-Benz, with 47 percent.
The data used in this study tracked customers between June 2019 and May 2020. It will be interesting to see how brand loyalty is affected by 2021’s data. With customers hungry for new cars and shortages affecting dealers across the country, whether or not brands can hang on to customers will likely have more to do with whether or not they have any vehicles to sell than the customer experience and vehicle quality.
