Carvana Ranks No. 2 for Customer Focus—But Some Buyers Strongly Disagree
Forbes recognized the online car retailer for its customer focus despite hundreds of complaints across the country.
Written by Julian de Sevilla
Reviewed by Kathleen Flear
The online used car retailer Carvana was ranked second on
Forbes’s list
of most customer-centric automotive brands for 2022 despite hundreds of complaints that led to investigations of its selling process. Forbes highlighted Carvana’s delivery options and seven-day return window, as well as the contactless sale process it established during the pandemic.
Forbes also named Carvana the No. 1 large employer in the retail and wholesale industry and one of the country’s best employers in terms of diversity.
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4.7/5 rating on the App Store | Trusted by 5+ million customers and 7 million cars4.7/5 app rating | Trusted by 5M+ driversCarvana’s customer-focused success
“Through a constant focus on creating amazing customer experiences, with an unwavering dedication to technology and innovation, we operate with shared values that have helped us set a new automotive retail standard for how customers should be treated: with care, honesty, and respect,” Ernie Garcia, Carvana founder and CEO,
said in a statement
. “As we continue our work to improve and modernize the automotive experience for people, being recognized by Forbes this year for our unwavering dedication to our customers is really motivating and reaffirming.”
Ford
ranked first on the list for its new focus on electric vehicles and commitment to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. It’s a respectable choice—after all, making an effort to delay humanity’s extinction is very customer-centric. Carvana was founded in 2012 and appeared on the Fortune 500 list in 2021. It is one of the youngest companies to ever do so. Behind CarMax, it is the second-largest used car dealer in the United States.
Carvana is known for its patented Car Vending Machines, which are exactly what they sound like—multi-story structures with windows on all sides displaying cars like a traditional vending machine displays snacks. The machines mimic the process of watching one’s chosen treat fall into your grasp with a mechanism that moves a buyer’s car from the upper levels of the machine down to the ground.
Investigations, fines, and missing titles
Carvana has been investigated, fined, and in some states, temporarily suspended from selling cars for issues like failing to deliver a car’s title in a reasonable time and transporting cars without the proper license.
A car’s title is required for registration, and some buyers have been left unable to register or drive their cars for upwards of a year while they waited to receive their titles—yet were still held responsible for making payments on the cars. Dealers are usually required to deliver a car’s title within 30 to 45 days depending on the state.
According to the
Wall Street Journal,
the Better Business Bureau received 899 complaints about Carvana from January to September of last year. There were 411 complaints filed about CarMax in the same time period.These issues can be seen as growing pains for a company that saw huge demand at the beginning of the pandemic, when buying a car online quickly became a more attractive option. Taking a traditionally in-person business—the car dealership—and putting it entirely online is further complicated by how regulations governing car sales differ across states.
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