Understanding Car-buying
Generative Research to understand how dealership behaviors impact car-buyers
Skills & Tools
User Interviews
User Flow Diagramming
Affinity Mapping
Qualitative Analysis
FigJam
Otter.Ai
Google Docs
Zoom
Timeline
8 weeks
(Oct-Nov 2023)
Team
I worked in a team of 4 researchers.
My Role
In this project, my role as a UX Researcher was multifaceted encompassing the entire research process. I contributed by creating interview guides, moderating interviews, meticulously recording notes, synthesizing valuable insights, and presenting these findings to executive stakeholders, ensuring a comprehensive and actionable research-driven approach.
Background
As part of the Advanced Usability course, our team collaborated with CDK Global's UX research team on a project aimed at delving into the realm of dealership salesmen behaviors and their influence on customers' buying attitudes. The objective was to gain a deeper understanding of this complex problem space and identify opportunities for enhancing the overall buying experience.
The Problem space
"How do customers perceive and respond to different dealership actions and behaviors when making a purchasing decision?"
Buying a car is a significant life decision, yet it's often accompanied by its own set of challenges. Common attitudes suggest that customers frequently encounter difficulties with dealerships and salesmen, which can detract from the overall car-buying experience.
💡 WHat i learnt 💡
The behavior of a dealership is a crucial factor in determining customer satisfaction during the car-buying process.
However, the price of the vehicle remains the most significant factor that influences a customer's decision on where to purchase a car.
Many customers perceive that dealers prioritize customer acquisition over retention, which can lead to dissatisfaction with after-sales services and reduced loyalty towards the dealership.
Research Roadmap
Background Prep
Stakeholder interviews
Screener
Moderator Script
Primary Research
Interviews with target population
Synthesizing insights
Personas & User Journeys
Created customer archetypes
Traced user journeys for them
Presenting Insights
Presented findings to the UX Research team at CDK Global
Background Prep
CDK Global is a technology company that provides integrated software and digital marketing solutions to the automotive retail industry. They develop products that help automotive industries manage their operations through DMS (dealer management systems) and CRM (Customer relationship management) tools.
Dealers have a “steps-to-sale” system of actions that they perform in the belief that it encourages the customer to buy a car. However, our client, CDK Global, believes that the current “steps-to-sale” actions that dealers use to close a sale has inefficiencies and seeks to understand how customers perceive these dealership actions and how it can be shortened.
Since CDK’s primary customers are dealerships and not car purchasers, there is little if any research done on the car purchasers.
CDKs current system is designed based on dealerships' perspectives about selling cars alone. Thus, understanding the mental models and experiences of car purchasers is imperative to gain insight into what actually drives or inhibits dealership sales and how we can improve the car buying experience.
1.1 Stakeholders Interviews
Talking to the stakeholder helped us anchor our research and craft the right research questions and hypothesis-
Research Questions:
How do customers perceive and respond to different dealership actions and behaviors when making a purchasing decision?
To what extent do customers prioritize dealership behaviors compared to other factors such as price, brand reputation, or product features when making a purchasing decision?
Can certain dealership behaviors be linked to higher levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty or vice versa?
Hypothesis:
Dealership behaviors have a significant impact on the decision-making process of customers when purchasing a car; this impact is greater than the influence of other factors such as price or product features.
1.2 Moderator Script
We interviewed a total of 8 users. Here are some of the questions we asked our interviewees-
Can you walk me through your recent car-buying process?
How did you decide on which dealership to visit?
What led you to choose this dealership?
How did you communicate with the dealership?
Can you recall any experiences you had with the dealership that particularly stood out to you?
If a friend/ acquaintance wishes to buy a car, would you recommend this dealership to them?
Primary Research
2.1 Interviewing users
From the stakeholder interview, it was clear that the COVID pandemic had significantly altered the automotive buying market. And hence, we only interviewed participants who bought cars after 2020 to avoid infusing unrelated variables and maintain relevance. Following are the demographics of our interviewees.
2.2 Open Coding and Thematic Analyses
We used Open Coding to classify different aspects from our interviews. Here's a snapshot of the process on FigJam
Persona & User Journeys
Based on the pattern we saw in our insights, it was clear that the user base was roughly split in between two archetypes. Their motivations and experiences were different and consequently the insights were different as well
3.1 The Noob
We wanted the app's color scheme to capture the richness of varied cultures and the warmth of home while also being simple and minimal.
Dora, 22
Server
Austin
"I feel like going with older people could be better- I felt more competent to deal with this kind of complex things when accompanied by them"
Dora is thinking of buying a compact and ‘cute’ car to navigate Austin's traffic. She's new to car buying and is exploring options by visiting dealerships. She is learning about the car buying process as she goes along.
Needs
Needs the dealer to be patient and explain the process as well as the car features properly
Needs assistance from friends/acquaintances to navigate the process
Unsure of what to ask and what not to ask
Feels that the process is not transparent
Has spent a lot of time trying to get a quote/out the door price
Troubled by the sales tactics, often scared or annoyed
Deception and lack of transparency on price frustrates customers and elongates the decision making process.
By creating a sense of urgency and scarcity, dealerships encourage customers to purchase immediately without looking elsewhere.
Dealership grab consumers’ attention by being very persistent through different modes of communication such as email and calls.
Customers feel dealers prioritize acquisition, neglecting concerns after payment, damaging long-term trust.
“"
After a while of asking for quotes and realizing that they weren’t an accurate reflection of what I would be spending, I started to ask for the Out-the-door price
“"
They told me stuff like ‘We only have gray, take it or leave it’. If you don’t want the gray, you’ll have to wait for the next batch. And you have to pay the deposit soon.
“"
The dealership prefer phone calls because they can push you into giving a response. They can’t do the same with emails, because the customer can choose when to reply.
“"
If you’ve paid a deposit, they will disappear and ghost you. If you text, they won’t reply, and if you call, they won’t pick up. It’s like you are in an abusive relationship and they're trying to emotionally manipulate you. I really don’t like it.
Areas for Opportunity :-
01
Customers are more likely to trust a dealership that is open and honest about prices, stock availability, and add-ons
02
Respect customers’ preferred method of communication, avoid excessive and aggressive communication tactics.
03
Establish a transparent channel to keep the customers in loop about system status at various phases of the journey.
3.2 The Seasoned
We wanted the app's color scheme to capture the richness of varied cultures and the warmth of home while also being simple and minimal.
Kim Possible, 27
Engineer
Austin
"It’s good to always do research and hold your stance. Be prepared to walk away if the offer isn’t good"
Dora is thinking of buying a compact and ‘cute’ car to navigate Austin's traffic. She's new to car buying and is exploring options by visiting dealerships. She is learning about the car buying process as she goes along.
Needs
Needs the dealer to be patient and explain the process as well as the car features properly
Needs assistance from friends/acquaintances to navigate the process
Unsure of what to ask and what not to ask
Feels that the process is not transparent
Has spent a lot of time trying to get a quote/out the door price
Troubled by the sales tactics, often scared or annoyed
Dealerships don’t paint a true-blue picture, both availability and price-wise which erodes customers trust.
Dealerships tend to overlook the customer's preferences and only take them into account when they realize they may lose the potential customer.
Clients can discern marketing strategies and, while being repelled, they endure them because they're unavoidable when purchasing a vehicle.
Pushy and unpleasant experiences are common in the process, so even the most singular positive experiences go a long way in building customer loyalty
“"
Sometimes what stock they have on their website and what they have in-person are different. Or its on the website but not in-person, on it's not on the website but is in-person. It’s never accurate
“"
I started to leave and then the manager starts saying, ‘okay okay you don’t need to buy the package’
“"
Usually they just try to push you into buying so that they can show their own sales targets
“"
I didn't visit the dealership again, but I called up the salesperson for a problem with the car a few days after buying and he was very helpful. He mentioned that others had the same problem, and he will be reporting it to the factory
Areas for Opportunity :-
04
Up-to-date and accurate information on the platforms would facilitate the car buying process, meaning more sales and more business
05
A critical, and perhaps one of the first things to improve in the whole car-buying process must be the customer-salesperson relationship
Reflection
Multiple Lenses - Our initial analysis was persona-centric but we later realized that we had overlooked the potential for broader insights by not examining data from a holistic viewpoint. We may or may not have gotten a different narrative for doing so, but it is important to not jump to the first set of conclusions and stick to them
