"In an ongoing battle for automotive customer loyalty, automakers may help build re-purchase intent by offering a highly satisfying service experience according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 Canadian Customer Commitment Index Study."
J.D. Power and Associates, Aug. 15, 2012
CAN you believe that, in 2012, the automotive industry still needs to conscript outside help from J.D. Power and Associates to discover such an elementary marketing axiom?
This speaks volumes about an industry that for decades has been the standard-bearer for everything consumers fear about succumbing to overenthusiastic sales-pitches.
Had I not heard Ryan Robinson, director of J.D. Power's automotive practice, interviewed on CKNW about the issue, I would have been tempted to say, "Well duh," in response to the company's observation. Robinson's comments made clear that carmakers still don't grasp that the quality of service provided after the customer has left the dealership showroom is at least as important as the sale itself.
The remarkable thing is that, after my automotive experiences over the past several years, I was surprised by this realization.
For more than 20 years, I leased rather than purchased a car. That philosophy arose after my harrowing experiences with a Ford Escort that spent as much time up on the hoist as it did on the road.
By leasing, I felt I would always be driving a reliable car that was still under warranty, and my only responsibility would be for regular maintenance.
For more than 15 years, the plan worked nicely - through a Mazda pick-up; a change in dealer ownership and two Nissan Altimas.
They were all good products.
Although leasing is a more costly way to acquire four wheels, the vehicles never once left me stranded at the side of the road. In all of that time, I only needed snow tires, one brake job and regular oil changes by way of servicing.
That all changed when I moved to a smaller car and bought into a five-year lease on a new 2005 Nissan Sentra - by which time the dealership and Nissan Canada together had enjoyed my "customer loyalty" for more than a decade.
For the first two years or so, everything went as smoothly as with my earlier vehicles. Then, with less than 50,000 kilometers on the odometer, a broken timing belt had two good Samaritans pushing my car to the side of the road to await the tow truck.
"Considering all things, it could have been worse," I decided.
"How true; let's see what we can do about that," laughed Fickle Fate.
Little more than a year after that mishap, the car's check-engine light came on.
I panicked, and the vehicle went into the first of a series of visits to a reputable North Vancouver service station our family has dealt with on and off for more than 40 years.
Peter and his staff could not come up with a definitive diagnosis other than a Code 4 showing on their diagnostic equipment. So, armed with the questions Peter said I should ask, I took the vehicle into the Nissan dealership a few months short of warranty expiration. I explained the history and symptoms to the intake staff, and received "It's nothing to do with the engine," in reply.
After that unhelpful reception, and noting that the check-engine light would -and because I was nearing the time when I could just walk away at lease end, I decided not to pay the $150 or so it would have cost for the dealership to repeat the diagnostic procedures staff there said were necessary.
That was where I really lost my common sense.
In Dec. 2010, I allowed myself to be talked into the idea that buying out the lease on a low-mileage car I was familiar with, would likely be cheaper than beginning all over again with another vehicle.
Wrong!
My clue should have been that, as I was completing the buyout papers, it took the sales manager less than 10 minutes to "fix" the low-coolant level he said was causing the heater not to warm the car in freezing weather and to warm it when the weather was mild.
Had I taken one more day and used my online skills, plugged the make, model, year and symptoms into Google and clicked "return", I would have run, not walked, away from that car.
Complaint after complaint about incidents and spurious diagnoses of low coolant, check-engine, overheated engines, stalls and blown head gaskets were everywhere - mostly in the U.S.A. and at higher mileage counts.
And after adding the bills for all of the pre-diagnosis trips to the service station and dealership to the cost of the final fix, I spent close to $3,000 to put that lemon back on the road.
Is it any wonder J.D. Power found that "customer satisfaction" with something as simple as "an oil change at a dealership service centre is 28 points lower than at a quick lube facility"?
Why has Nissan not been forced to issue a recall?
And where is the industry's loyalty to its customers?
