Call for franchise input
The views of hundreds of franchise dealers are being sought as part of an annual survey with the organisers casting their net wide in 2025.
About 500 dealerships were emailed about it at the start of October by the Motor Trade Association (MTA), which is aiming for response rate of at least 50 per cent.
The survey, which is known as the dealer-distributor relationship index (DDRI), has this year been expanded to businesses selling mopeds, motorbikes and heavy vehicles in addition to light vehicles.
“Autofile has supplied us with details from its Dealer Directory to help ensure no one’s missing from our own database because it’s important we get to as many dealers as we can,” says Larry Fallowfield, the MTA’s sector manager for dealers.
This year is the third time the survey, which takes about 10-12 minutes to complete, has been carried out digitally. The deadline for replies is 11.59pm on November 16.
Its purpose is to produce results and create discussion points that dealers can use to inform their distributors what the industry is thinking. Fallowfield explains that the more people who respond to the survey – ranking their satisfaction from very satisfied to very dissatisfied – the more accurate the final DDRI report will be.
“The first year we went digital in 2023 there was a poor response rate. Part of the challenge is that a dealer principal may get 100 emails daily, so by the end of the day our one may have dropped off their screens. However, I would hope this year we can get more than 50 per cent of all dealers.”
As part of the MTA’s communications strategy for the DDRI, it’s running a banner on Autofile’s website with a QR code people can scan for direct access to the survey.
“We send out reminders to complete the survey also ran a banner with Autofile Online last year, which got plenty of uptake so we’re repeating that this year,” says Fallowfield.
“The survey provides an opportunity for dealers to be honest about their relationships with brands and what those brands offer. The answers then go into a report that hopefully encourages engagement between dealers and distributors around what’s happening in the market.”
Only dealers who take part in the survey, which is in its 19th year, will receive a copy of the report.
