It doesn’t really take a genius to know that a good website is important for businesses in today’s world, but not all automakers are heeding that advice effectively. J.D. Power has released the results of its Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study, and found that some automakers do considerably better than others.
The study found that Land Rover and Jeep were the automakers whose websites performed the best in their respective categories (the premium and mass market segments). The automakers that performed the worst in those same segments, meanwhile, were Volvo and Mini.
Both performed much lower than the segment average, with Volvo’s score of 687 out of 1,000 significantly lower than the segment average of 722. Mini was rated at 658, meanwhile, which not only made it the brand with the worst website overall, but meant it was 50 points below its segment’s average of 708, and 28 points behind the second-worst mass market manufacturer, Volkswagen.
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Jeep, meanwhile, scored 727 out of 1,000, while Land Rover was the best performing brand overall, with a score of 749. And that matters not only because a manufacturer’s homepage is often a potential customer’s first point of interaction with the brand, but because a good website can increase sales, too.
J.D. Power found that when shoppers use tools like a configurator, the vehicle compare function, the 360° viewer, and the payment and lease calculator, their likelihood to consider the brand increases by 11 percentage points.
To work out its scores, J.D. Power measured customers’ satisfaction with automaker websites and examined four key areas. In order of importance, they are: information/content, visual appeal, navigation, and speed. The study looked at responses from 10,487 new vehicle shoppers who indicated that they will be in the market for a new vehicle in the next two years.
“In today’s shopping environment, manufacturer websites must have a robust set of tools for shoppers to use,” said Jon Sundberg, director of digital solutions at J.D. Power. “Not only is it important to have the tools, they also need to be easily discoverable, well-designed and intuitive to use to significantly drive brand consideration.”
