Matt Murray

One of the biggest pain points of buying an EV at a dealership today: “The sales rep knows less about the car than I do.” And get this – Negative reviews citing “knowledge issues” jumped 48% in Q2. Most EV shoppers are first-timers—but 70–90% walk in already well-researched. Expectations are sky-high. Bottom line: When tax credits fade and EVs get harder to move, this training gap could make or break a store’s EV profitability. – From Widewail’s Q2 2025 Voice of the Customer Report | See industry trends from over 2.7 million Google reviews posted during the first half of 2025 → carguymedia.com/4nfYKXE | @widewailers partner

Bad reviews for dealerships are on the rise: Negative Google reviews for car dealerships are up, with “staff” issues jumping nearly 20%. Biggest complaints: finance (+31.4%), warranty (+21.6%), and sales (10.6%). But here’s the twist: the same areas earn glowing reviews when done right. Basically, dealerships that prioritize transparency and collaboration—especially in the finance office—are winning customer praise. Get the full story in @widewailers report: widewail.com/voc ____ (Data via CDG partner: @widewailers #widewailpartner)

@CJRomig @GuyDealership Also no denying that Toyota is the current king of car sales. Super impressive.

@Matt_Murray @GuyDealership Totally get it Matt... Just an off the cuff statement at glancing over the Top 10 manufactures... I would like to think in a small sample size of dealerships in an area that each would stand alone fighting for the "Google" Dominance.

Just dropped — Highest-scoring sales departments by car brand: Experience Scores 1. Volvo 97.4% 2. Porsche 93.9% 3. Subaru 93.7% 4. Jaguar 93.6% 5. Mazda 92.4% 6. Audi 92.3% 7. Land Rover 91.8% 9. Acura 90.8% 9. BMW 90.7% 10. Lexus 90.2% … 32. Ram 80.5% Ranks are based on the percentage of “positive mentions” of six key sales-related topics found in 1.1M Google reviews. Basically, the more often these topics are mentioned in positive reviews, the “better” the overall customer sales experience. Check out the full analysis here (including every brands ranking): carguymedia.com/4bmFD8n (Data via CDG Partner: @widewail #widewailpartner)

@GuyDealership “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room” - @JeffBezos

@WAT401K @GuyDealership On the way!

@GuyDealership Now let’s see service scores

@CJRomig @GuyDealership Doesn't mean they have the best Sales experience!

@GuyDealership Toyota sold almost more than this Top 10 list on its own...

Enjoy!

@DeanMit24955234 @GuyDealership Glad to hear it, Dean!

@GuyDealership widewail.com/rev I am really enjoying reading this website thanks for the link to it.

@gnrldsppntmnt @GuyDealership More than 5M opinions expressed through reviews per year is a pretty decent basis

@GuyDealership I’m not convinced Google reviews can be generalized to the entire car buying population.

@Capitalist_WS @GuyDealership That's a bummer to hear

@GuyDealership Having just bought Porsche, very surprised. Salesperson at my “high end” location was awful Incapable of follow-up, no attention to detail, zero relationship building skills He’s been there for 15 years. Pretty shocked how bad he is

@OlliKatajainen @GuyDealership In this study, it's their customers perception of the Sales experience.

@kaiyabunga @GuyDealership This is the Volvo customer saying it's a great sales experience. Seems plausible?

@1MarketsWarrior @GuyDealership We look at millions per year. Google is among the least fake/fraudulent review site.

@GuyDealership A lot of $GOOGL reviews are fake. In particular for car dealerships that spice them up big time. I looked at some of dealerships in my area, and cooking up was glaring.

@GuyDealership A lot of questions around @Tesla . Because Tesla does not have a large dealership network, they were excluded from this study. Tesla, Rivian and further EV segmentation is included in Widewail's Voice of the Customer Report -widewail.com/2023-voice-of-…

Big news — Car brand reputation rankings just got released for 2024: 1. Lexus 95/100 2. Toyota 94/100 3. BMW 91/100 4. Honda 88/100 5. Nissan 87/100 6. Kia 83/100 … 32. Genesis 36/100 This study is based on 4.1M+ Google reviews across 17K+ dealerships. The ranking methodology takes into account each dealership’s Lifetime and Monthly Review Volume, Star Rating and Review Response Rates. This is an insanely rich and detailed report from Widewail. You can access it here: widewail.com/brand-scorecard (Data via CDG Partner: Widewail #WidewailPartner)

@dharmesh @bhalligan @HarryStebbings Fantastic discussion, gents. Thanks for sharing.

I've watched most every talk that my friend and HubSpot co-founder @bhalligan has given. I learn something new in every one. This one gets into some areas he hasn't talked much about before. @HarryStebbings does a great job as always. Worth watching. #recommend.

@bhalligan Some things just make good sense. Congrats to the @HubSpot and @clearbit teams!

HubSpot announced acquisition of Clearbit this morning. Imagine opening your CRM box and having it full already? Yup. hubspot.com/company-news/w…

TMAI #358: AI Revolution: An Activation Framework. -P1 from @avinash is a fantastic read. Highly recommend, friends. Bravo, Avinash. And thank you.

@bhalligan Love the mention of the democratization of analytics. The impact on legacy customer experience platforms (amongst many others) will be huge.

2nd order effects of AI on revenue operations.

These guys are serious. Don’t sleep on Fluency.