Brand Protection Audits

Brand Protection Audits from SGS
Ensure your dealers are committed to respecting and building your brand, every day.

Your dealer network is the human face of your brand. When they are totally professional they build the brand as well as drive the business forward. Therefore, it’s critical for car manufacturers to ensure that dealers properly maintain and respect the brand and all it stands for. However, large expensive communication campaigns aimed at building a particular brand image can fail because discrepancies can happen during the sales process.

Brand Protection Audits from SGS protect, maintain, and build brands by inspecting and reporting on your dealership’s compliance to existing internal code of conduct of the sales process. Our audits uncover any problem areas in your network with the regard of dealers’ conformity to your company’s standards of quality and service, so that you can take the necessary steps to preserve one of your most valuable assets – your brand.

Dealership assessment
Brand Protection Audits serve as a complementary tool to any traditional 2nd party audits carried out against your general quality requirements. What’s more, they provide clear results that help to ensure your dealers comply with your latest policies.

To maximise the effect of Brand Protection Audits, SGS uses ‘mystery shopper’ audits in which a professional auditor plays the role of a customer. Using a pre-agreed set of criteria they visit a dealership, in the guise of a potential customer then report on the service elements that an everyday customer would notice. This can vary from the general appearance of the showroom and staff to how long they had to wait before being served. They address details, such as whether the employees are courteous, appropriately dressed and wearing identification tag. Each audit is tailored to individual brand needs.

SGS also performs Brand Protection Audits at competitor’s dealerships, providing you with useful information about their dealers’ attitudes, strengths and weaknesses.

Preparation for Brand Protection Audits
SGS will work with you to design “mystery shopper” audits that fulfil your specific objectives. We agree the roles our auditors are going to play (gender, age, profession, type of vehicle) and determine the focus and detail of their visit. Finally, we determine how your mystery audit results are going to be classified so that the final data is clear, coherent and actionable.

We also factor in the number of auditors required – bearing in mind that the same auditor won’t visit the same site twice and multiple visits to numerous sites may be necessary to get a clear overall picture.

Managing your data
The best results are achieved with an Internet database for auditors to input their results. SGS has the experience and expertise to help build this kind of data management system. At any time during the process, such a database can provide information like dealership scores, local statistics and global trends concerning your dealers’ conformity to your company’s standards of quality and service. The result is a real-time overview of how the brand is respected and used in individual locations and across regions and geographies.

Making the most of Brand Protection Audits
Brand Protection Audits are an investigative tool that ensures your dealers comply and continue to comply with company standards. They are designed to focus on specific criteria that customers notice - general appearance, sales processes and your brand’s communication. The results provide you with a greater understanding of where and how to improve the customers’ perception of your brand. Once a common understanding of the standards you expect has been established, dealers can support your brand in the best way possible. Brand Protection Audits also help you to develop the quality and consistency of your network, which will earn you respect from customers, stakeholders and other dealers.