Motor Ombudsman reports 146,000 views

The Motor Ombudsman’s online Knowledge Base recorded over 146,000 article views during 2019, the equivalent of around 400 every day.

Launched a year ago, the user-friendly Knowledge Base provides answers to some of the most commonly asked questions in relation to running a vehicle and dispute resolution in the automotive sector.

Consumers can now consult a comprehensive library of over 110 articles relating to The Motor Ombudsman’s four Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI)-approved Codes of Practice, car ownership and commonly used automotive terminology, prior to raising a case. Furthermore, with the growing choice and rise in sales of zero emission models, a sixth category on electric vehicles was recently added to the Knowledge Base, touching on areas such as servicing, repairs, and whether they fall within the remit of the Codes.

Subjects in relation to the purchase of a new or used car accounted for 60% of the 10 most popular articles in 2019, with ‘Can I get a deposit refund?’ emerging as the most clicked on question in the Knowledge Base.

Other frequently referred to articles involved the conditions for rejecting a vehicle, a garage damaging a consumer’s car whilst in its care, or what a customer can do if a business was unable to correctly diagnose a fault

Throughout 2019, the Knowledge Base also witnessed close to 48,000 user searches, with the terms ‘warranty’ ‘recall’ and ‘service’ proving the most used generic terms in the search bar.

Bill Fennell, chief ombudsman and managing director of The Motor Ombudsman, said: “Use of the Knowledge Base by consumers as the first port of call for information prior to raising a case with our dispute resolution team, has grown considerably during the past 12 months. It has therefore been very encouraging to see just how popular this tool on our website is proving to be. Going forward, we will be looking to expand the subjects included within our existing library to help to ensure that we continue to address the main issues and queries that consumers are ultimately searching for. The first few days of this year have already shown a significant level of activity across the Knowledge Base, and we expect this trend to stay as awareness of this already popular resource grows further.”