Law and Rights
The service department is the front line of customer satisfaction or customer irritation. If the dealer's service department treats the customer like gold, the customer stays happy and will put up with almost anything that goes wrong with their vehicle. If they make the customer mad, then tolerance grows short, customer satisfaction goes down the drain, and the customer is one step from a lawyer's office. Smart dealers know that, too.
Lexus, Buick and Cadillac dealers do the best job providing repair and maintenance services for their customers, according to the JD Power 2006 Customer Service Index Study. That explains why we see fewer complaints on those three brands than any others, in spite of a recent and serious safety recall by Buick and Cadillac.
Meantime, VW and Isuzu owners are an unhappy lot with their dealers, according to the survey. That, too, fits what we see, punctuated by VW's recent recall of 362,000 vehicles.
Lexus is at the top of customer satisfaction in the service department survey and you can bet that fact isn't lost on Lexus. They scored 912 on a scale of 1,000. Just a notch behind is Buick, with 911, followed by Cadillac at 909. We aren't surprised to see Lexus at the top of the heap, but while the score may be neck and neck on the Cadillac and Buick numbers, our clients have filed a lot more lawsuits over Cadillac lemons, by far, than Buick. The service departments maybe doing great, but the manufacturing quality seems to be much higher at the Buick plants.
Isuzu bottoms out the list with the worst score for the second year in a row with 781 points, and their sales have reflected it for several years. VW scored 810 points and Suzuki with 823 wasn't far behind. Isuzu and Suzuki both have a checkered history of customer satisfaction troubles. A few years ago VW's quality seemed highly touted but that appears to have fallen, more or less likely in direct proportion to the number of "New Beetle" vehicles on the road.
The survey was based on results from nearly 80,000 drivers of 2003 - 2005 model vehicles and is worth checking out.
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Law and Rights
The Service Departments That Make a Difference
The service department is the front line of customer satisfaction or customer irritation. If the dealer's service department treats the customer like gold, the customer stays happy and will put up with almost anything that goes wrong with their vehicle. If they make the customer mad, then tolerance grows short, customer satisfaction goes down the drain, and the customer is one step from a lawyer's office. Smart dealers know that, too.
Lexus, Buick and Cadillac dealers do the best job providing repair and maintenance services for their customers, according to the JD Power 2006 Customer Service Index Study. That explains why we see fewer complaints on those three brands than any others, in spite of a recent and serious safety recall by Buick and Cadillac.
Meantime, VW and Isuzu owners are an unhappy lot with their dealers, according to the survey. That, too, fits what we see, punctuated by VW's recent recall of 362,000 vehicles.
Lexus is at the top of customer satisfaction in the service department survey and you can bet that fact isn't lost on Lexus. They scored 912 on a scale of 1,000. Just a notch behind is Buick, with 911, followed by Cadillac at 909. We aren't surprised to see Lexus at the top of the heap, but while the score may be neck and neck on the Cadillac and Buick numbers, our clients have filed a lot more lawsuits over Cadillac lemons, by far, than Buick. The service departments maybe doing great, but the manufacturing quality seems to be much higher at the Buick plants.
Isuzu bottoms out the list with the worst score for the second year in a row with 781 points, and their sales have reflected it for several years. VW scored 810 points and Suzuki with 823 wasn't far behind. Isuzu and Suzuki both have a checkered history of customer satisfaction troubles. A few years ago VW's quality seemed highly touted but that appears to have fallen, more or less likely in direct proportion to the number of "New Beetle" vehicles on the road.
The survey was based on results from nearly 80,000 drivers of 2003 - 2005 model vehicles and is worth checking out.
Subscribe in a reader- Most Reliable Cars For 2016 - And The Worst Predictions From Consumer Reports Magazine
Each year Consumer Reports Magazine sends out thousands of questionnaires to car owners to survey defects and problems that owners are experiencing. Based on the latest survey results, Consumer Reports has predicted what cars will the most reliable in...
- Buick Is Outselling Lexus And Coming Up Very Close To Bmw Sales - And They Can't Believe It.
After GM filed bankruptcy it starting shutting down the non-profit model lines and a lot of folks thought Buick was on the hit list. Not us. First Buick quality has always been pretty good and often better than Cadillac. Second, Buick was selling tons...
- Japan Is #1 In Germany
Japanese car companies took the top 3 spots for customer satisfaction in Germany, beating out the Germans on their own turf. In the land of Mercedes and BMW, the Top 10 customer satisfaction rankings go mostly to foreigners. Achtung! Pass the beer stein...
- Jaguar Best In Quality Survey
Jaguar comes in best, at the top of the heap, in the 2006 JD Power quality survey for customer satisfaction for the third year in a row. The new car quality survey is based on more than 42,000 new vehicle buyers and looks at dealership facility, salesperson,...
- Univ Michigan's Customer Satisfaction Survey Chooses Toyota #1
Since 1994 the University of Michigan's School of Business has been conducting its "American Customer Satisfaction Index" and new results have just been released. For the second year in a row, Toyota came out on top. The study measures consumer attitudes...