General Motors’ Buick brand was the highest-ranked mass market brand when it comes to dealer service satisfaction for the second year in a row while Jaguar was the top luxury brand among customers in the J.D. Power 2015 U.S. Customer Service Index study.
The study measures customer satisfaction with service at a franchised dealer facility for maintenance or repair work among owners and lessees of 1- to 5-year-old vehicles.
The number of visits to a dealer because of a recall reached 16 percent last year, the highest to date, and the satisfaction of those customers improved to 789 on a 1,000-point scale, up from 777 in 2014.
That is not surprising given that there was a record number of recalls in the U.S. last year - almost 64 million which was more than double the previous record of almost 31 million in 2004.
The bump in satisfaction rates for recall work bucked the trend as there was a slight decline in overall satisfaction with service departments. Customers with a recall visit scored their satisfaction 8 points higher than those with a regular repair visit.
“Even though recalls can create a large influx of customers into the service department and really strain capacity, automakers are better prepared to handle recalls than they were a few years ago,” said Chris Sutton, vice president, U.S. automotive retail practice at J.D. Power.
“Manufacturers have shown that it is possible to turn a potential negative into a positive when it comes to recalls if they’re done in a way that doesn’t inconvenience the customer,” Sutton said.
General Motors recalled almost 27 million vehicles last year in the U.S.
The Buick brand was not part of GM’s ignition switch recall. Nor was it part of the huge Takata air bag recall that involved 10 different automakers. Last year 21 million vehicles were recalled for air bag issues.
Buick repeats as the best of the 20 mass market brands as measured on five service areas including the quality of the service, service initiation, the advisor, facility and vehicle pick-up.
“Superior reliability, quality and customer service is core to every model we bring to market,” said Duncan Aldred, vice president of Buick, in a statement. “Leading the market in service satisfaction demonstrates that we and our dealers continue to deliver on that commitment.”
Buick is followed by Mini, Volkswagen, GMC and Chevrolet.
Among luxury brands, Cadillac falls from first to fifth, trailing Jaguar, Lexus, Audi and Lincoln. Overall, those who own luxury vehicles are happier with their service experience.
“The Jaguar brand has undergone a tremendous transformation over the last few years with new models like the F-TYPE, increased focus on customer care and tremendous investment from our retailers in their facilities and processes,” said Joe Eberhardt, President of Jaguar Land Rover North America.
“It is especially gratifying to have our customers recognize through J.D. Power the high quality of their Jaguar vehicle service experience,” Eberhardt said. “Our plan is to build on this momentum even further with new products and customer first programs on the way.”
Dealers that offer an express lane for customers who do not schedule service appointments substantially outperform those that do not offer this option, the survey found. At dealerships with an express lane, 52 percent of customers said they spoke to a service advisor immediately, compared with 38 percent of those who took their car to a dealership without a fast lane.
And customers still book their appointments the old-fashioned way. Even though most dealerships offer online scheduling, only 9 percent book their appointments using the Internet compared with 73 percent who call for an appointment. Part of it is lack of awareness: 45 percent did not know they could schedule online.
There is also a payoff in continuity. Satisfaction rates increase when a customer works with the same advisor in subsequent visits and two-thirds say that is in fact the case at their dealership.
What about service departments that recommend additional work? The survey found that was the case for 29 percent of customers and almost half of them agreed to have the extra work performed. That brought their average bill up to $277 compared with $171 for those who did not have the extra work done.
The study is based on responses from more than 70,000 owners and lessees of 2010-2014 model-year vehicles and was conducted between November and December 2014.
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