Twice a year – in the summer and the winter – J.D. Power releases its U.S. Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study, which measures customer satisfaction with the websites operated by automotive manufacturers and individual brands. In the most recent version of that study – winter 2024 – Ford finished with 715 out of 1,000 possible points, which ranked sixth among all mass market manufacturers – a big improvement following two consecutive periods of declines. However, that didn’t last long, it seems.
With the recent release of the 2024 J.D. Power summer U.S. Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study, we can see that Ford tumbled all the way down to 16th place with a score of 701 points, which ranks it ahead of only Mini and Mitsubishi in terms of mass market manufacturers. That’s also below the segment average of 722 points, making for a very notable and significant plunge compared to The Blue Oval’s results just a few months ago.
The J.D. Power U.S. Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study measures customer satisfaction with automotive manufacturer websites by examining four key areas – information/content; visual appeal; navigation; and speed. The latest version of this study is based on the responses of 10,471 new-vehicle shoppers who indicated that they’ll be in the market for a new vehicle within the next 24 months, and found that overall, website satisfaction reached its highest level in three in a half years over the past few months – largely due to an increase in inventory and the return of incentives.
“There were numerous macroeconomic factors, such as lack of chips and inventory, negatively influencing the auto industry during the pandemic,” said Chelsea Duckhart, analyst of digital solutions at J.D. Power. “Now, the auto industry is as close to normal as it has ever been and because of that, we are seeing an increase in inventory, incentives, and rebates. Additionally, manufacturers are being more transparent by showing vehicles being built and delivered as well as an increase in price transparency, all things that significantly affect website satisfaction.”
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Comments
The Ford website has definitely gotten worse the last few years. They are not even trying to have a useful website. The “Build and Price” feature is semi usable but the “Search Inventory” tool is worthless, as there is no way to find which dealers have cars that have the features you want. Many of the filtering features are for items that aren’t even available. Or, they don’t let you determine if options you want, like adaptive cruise control, are available. Independent 3rd party search tools work much better.
I totally agree with your post. GM’s is better and Hyundai’s is even better. Both will match your build with actual stock vehicles when possible.
If it’s the same software developers that do Blue Cruise updates then I am not surprised.