Ask an owner community

[Phil xxkr]

Just received email from Lexus advising me that they have launched a new iniative - Ask an Owner? Have many people received this, what are your thoughts? Mine is, why duplicate LOC? 

[deltapapa]

I also had an email.

[Phil xxkr]

18 minutes ago, deltapapa said:

I also had an email.

What do you think? 

[royoftherovers]

1 hour ago, Phil xxkr said:

Just received email from Lexus advising me that they have launched a new iniative - Ask an Owner? Have many people received this, what are your thoughts? Mine is, why duplicate LOC? 

L.O.C. is not associated with Lexus U.K and is unable to exercise any clout as regards anything as far as I am aware Phil.

[Phil xxkr]

2 hours ago, royoftherovers said:

L.O.C. is not associated with Lexus U.K and is unable to exercise any clout as regards anything as far as I am aware Phil.

I understand that John but they will be more than aware of the LOC so why set up an alternative voice for owners? That's why I am so intrigued as to the motivation. Unless of course the cynic in me might venture, to control the content? 

[royoftherovers]

6 minutes ago, Phil xxkr said:

I understand that John but they will be more than aware of the LOC so why set up an alternative voice for owners? That's why I am so intrigued as to the motivation. Unless of course the cynic in me might venture, to control the content? 

I don`t believe that the population of L.O.C. Members is the same population of owners being written to by Lexus.

I have seen no evidence in my 8 years of Membership of any acknowledgement of L.O.C. by Lexus U.K. Perhaps Colin or Steve has a different view ?

I see nothing wrong in Lexus U.K. doing what it has done. The Membership of L.O.C is perhaps loaded in favour of those who have raised dissatisfaction rather than those who have praised their vehicles?

An outcome in the form of an improvement of Lexus service to all Lexus owners would be welcome as the recent history of Lexus reducing the availability of warranty cover has not been received enthusiastically. 

[Phil xxkr]

46 minutes ago, royoftherovers said:

I don`t believe that the population of L.O.C. Members is the same population of owners being written to by Lexus.

I have seen no evidence in my 8 years of Membership of any acknowledgement of L.O.C. by Lexus U.K. Perhaps Colin or Steve has a different view ?

I see nothing wrong in Lexus U.K. doing what it has done. The Membership of L.O.C is perhaps loaded in favour of those who have raised dissatisfaction rather than those who have praised their vehicles?

An outcome in the form of an improvement of Lexus service to all Lexus owners would be welcome as the recent history of Lexus reducing the availability of warranty cover has not been received enthusiastically. 

As I said previously, just what is the motivation? If it's being used as an foc focus group that, in my opinion, is disingenuous. And I am unconvinced that people join the LOC as a channel for expressing dissatisfaction with the the brand/vehicle. In my case it was to understand more about my model and seek as and when advice from more learned people such as yourself. Do Lexus UK know of the LOC, of course they do, but I agree with you in that they show no obvious affinity with the club unlike say the Jaguar one. I believe this to be myopic in the extreme and does not engender brand allegiance which I have always thought to be the Holy Grail of marketing strategy. 

[dutchie01]

In its worst form it will be a Lexus good news show fully controlled by the marketingdepartment. Send a question and you will receive scripted answers, steering questions plus an invitation to visit dealer XYZ. If its really bad they will even invent non existing customers.

I cannot think they will accept an open forum like the LOC where positives and negatives about the brand and its products and strategy are discussed freely.

 

[Phil xxkr]

4 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

In its worst form it will be a Lexus good news show fully controlled by the marketingdepartment. Send a question and you will receive scripted answers, steering questions plus an invitation to visit dealer XYZ. If its really bad they will even invent non existing customers.

I cannot think they will accept an open forum like the LOC where positives and negatives about the brand and its products and strategy are discussed freely.

 

Bernard! A fellow cynic 🤣

[Herbie]

If I buy a widget from amazon but I'm not sure of something, I can ask a question that is then answered by other people who have also bought the same widget previously and have come to understand how it works.

Not only that but, as a buyer of said widget, when someone else has a question about it, amazon then email me (along with other previous buyers) and ask if I can answer a query posed by a prospective buyer.

Lexus are calling it "Ask an owner" so I assume it will work in the same way as the amazon model does.

Is there a place for it? Probably.

Would they be better coming here to ask us owners? Probably.

[Phil xxkr]

13 minutes ago, Herbie said:

If I buy a widget from Amazon but I'm not sure of something, I can ask a question that is then answered by other people who have also bought the same widget previously and have come to understand how it works.

Not only that but, as a buyer of said widget, when someone else has a question about it, Amazon then email me (along with other previous buyers) and ask if I can answer a query posed by a prospective buyer.

Lexus are calling it "Ask an owner" so I assume it will work in the same way as the Amazon model does.

Is there a place for it? Probably.

Would they be better coming here to ask us owners? Probably.

I would definitely change your last word to definitely Herbs. 😁 As to reviews it's well known a huge number are not real but sponsored. A shame but there we are. However a £2 widget is a lot simpler to duplicate in volume than a £20k lexus 

[Herbie]

57 minutes ago, Phil xxkr said:

I would definitely change your last word to definitely Herbs. 😁 As to reviews it's well known a huge number are not real but sponsored. A shame but there we are. However a £2 widget is a lot simpler to duplicate in volume than a £20k lexus 

This is nothing to do with reviews Philip, purely owners or would-be owners asking questions of other owners, like so:

[dutchie01]

I feel something could be overlooked here. We are on this forum because we like cars in general and Lexus in particular. We have interest in automotive topics and are looking for info/stories or just automotive entertainment. For me it is almost a daily read. Now here is the question, from all people that bought a Lexus in the last 5 years, how many are on this or other Lexus forums? A vast minority for sure. And the rest? My guess is they are happily driving around and have no interest in answering  other owners questions on a Lexus website. Same for other brands, most people buy a car and thats it.

Having said that, in the revamped Lexus website there is already a tile with "owner reviews" stating "independent customer reviews".  For the ES there are 163 (!) reviews, most in one sentence or just 4 or 5 stars without text. 

[dutchie01]

1 hour ago, Phil xxkr said:

I would definitely change your last word to definitely Herbs. 😁 As to reviews it's well known a huge number are not real but sponsored. A shame but there we are. However a £2 widget is a lot simpler to duplicate in volume than a £20k lexus 

plus amazon has 15 million subscribers in the Uk and Lexus sells less than 14000 per year. Different scale of things and completely different businessmodel. 

[royoftherovers]

7 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

I feel something could be overlooked here. We are on this forum because we like cars in general and Lexus in particular. We have interest in automotive topics and are looking for info/stories or just automotive entertainment. For me it is almost a daily read. Now here is the question, from all people that bought a Lexus in the last 5 years, how many are on this or other Lexus forums? A vast minority for sure. And the rest? My guess is they are happily driving around and have no interest in answering  other owners questions on a Lexus website. Same for other brands, most people buy a car and thats it.

Having said that, in the revamped Lexus website there is already a tile with "owner reviews" stating "independent customer reviews".  For the ES there are 163 (!) reviews, most in one sentence or just 4 or 5 stars without text. 

Give us a clue Bernard!

I`ve just looked in Lexus.co.uk website and couldn`t see the "owners reviews " section.

Could be me, could be the Rioja, or it could be you, old Bean.🤣🤣

[ALAW]

Yes i had the email

[Phil xxkr]

12 hours ago, Herbie said:

This is nothing to do with reviews Philip, purely owners or would-be owners asking questions of other owners, like so:

I used the word "reviews" in a wider context Herbs I.e. any published comments. And again I ask the question, are they genuine? 

[Phil xxkr]

11 hours ago, dutchie01 said:

plus amazon has 15 million subscribers in the Uk and Lexus sells less than 14000 per year. Different scale of things and completely different businessmodel. 

That was exactly my point, far easier to induce false positive reviews from low value products in huge numbers. For example I bought a faulty product from eBay via China. I failed to get a suitable resolution from the seller and wrote a review pointing out the limitations. The seller then offered me a full refund if I withdrew my review and replaced it with a 5 star one 😱 I am sure you can guess my response 👍

[dutchie01]

11 hours ago, royoftherovers said:

Give us a clue Bernard!

I`ve just looked in Lexus.co.uk website and couldn`t see the "owners reviews " section.

Could be me, could be the Rioja, or it could be you, old Bean.🤣🤣

  Go to the Lexus website, click on cars then ES then scroll to the bottom and presto!

[royoftherovers]

14 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

  Go to the Lexus website, click on cars then ES then scroll to the bottom and presto!

Thanks Bernard.

Went to Lexus.co.uk site, found ES, found heading of reviews, clicked on it and.......nothing. Not a single one.😒

 

[Phil xxkr]

38 minutes ago, royoftherovers said:

Thanks Bernard.

Went to Lexus.co.uk site, found ES, found heading of reviews, clicked on it and.......nothing. Not a single one.😒

 

It's there John for all the cars by model.? After selecting owner reviews there's a brief hesitation then scroll down 👍 having said that it's a bit pointless, the RX ones have 5 stars but no words 🤔

[royoftherovers]

15 minutes ago, Phil xxkr said:

It's there John for all the cars by model.? After selecting owner reviews there's a brief hesitation then scroll down 👍 having said that it's a bit pointless, the RX ones have 5 stars but no words 🤔

Not working for me,Matey, thanks for helping.

[steve2006]

This is a bit like “Who wants to be a millionaire”

We have “Ask the Audience”...... LOC members

”Ask the host”......Lexus UK

I’m  50/50 on this at the moment but may phone a friend for further guidance.

[royoftherovers]

Just now, steve2006 said:

This is a bit like “Who wants to be a millionaire”

We have “Ask the Audience”...... LOC members

”Ask the host”......Lexus UK

I’m  50/50 on this at the moment but may phone a friend for further guidance.

Can you help ?

[steve2006]

4 minutes ago, royoftherovers said:

Can you help ?

Is that the million pound question John 😀