According a Study conducted by the J.D. Power and Associates a global marketing information services, Honda had ranked the highest in the automotive industry for retaining the highest percentage of new-vehicle purchases. Its study measures the percentage of new-vehicle buyers and lessees who replace a previously purchased new vehicle with another from the same brand.
Improving by nearly two percentage points from 2007, Honda leads the customer retention rankings (64.7%), followed by Toyota (63.2%) and Lexus (60.4%).As New-Vehicle Sales Continue to Fall, Customer Retention Becomes Critically Important and Honda has succeeded in achieving customers retention. Honda has always being a strong performer when it comes to customer retention, and in 2008 it marks the first time since the inception of the study that the brand has achieved the highest retention rate in the industry and that too at a time where the rest of the manufactures are going through a tough challenge due to the current market conditions which includes the sales decline and tight credit.
The customer retention rates declines slightly to 48 percent in 2008 from 49 percent in 2007. In 2008, 13 of the 36 ranked brands have improved in customer retention rates from 2007, while 18 have declined and five have remained stable. Land Rover posts the greatest improvement in customer retention rates from 2007, improving by 18 percentage points in 2008. This improvement is driven primarily by incentives, attractive sales deals and the look and styling of Land Rover models.
The study confirms that the retained customer’s reason for their repurchasing of vehicles is its
importance of safety, fuel economy and deals/incentives. Fuel economy, ownership/maintenance costs and deals/incentives have the greatest increases in importance since 2007 in their decisions to change brands.
Study has found out that customer retention will become more critical to automakers in the coming years, as new light-vehicles sales in 2009 are projected to decline to below 12 million units. Educating potential buyers about vehicles good fuel economy and low ownership cost will help the manufactures retain their customers and also attract new customers to it.