Porsche U.S. Chief Furious About Low Customer Satisfaction
By Paulo Acoba
If your child finishes ninth place in a track and field meet, you tell your child good job and maybe push him or her to train harder. But if you’re the boss of North American Porsche dealerships and you see your beloved brand getting pummeled in overall customer satisfaction surveys you’d be downright livid.
Porsche’s U.S. Chief, Detlev Von Platen told Auto News
"]“I’m not happy about what we have done in terms of customer satisfaction performance.I t’s not at the speed I wanted to see. And some other competitors were quicker.”"
Translation. Get your act together Porsche dealerships!
Platen was referring to the results of the J.D. Power’s latest customer satisfaction poll amongst luxury car makers that they just dropped earlier this March. Jaguar was top of the heap with Porsche a dismal ninth, well below the industry average.
Here are the results courtesy of J.D. Power.
There are a lot of things that affect customer satisfaction. According to Porsche, they have the speed of service down. I guess what’s left is the amount that was billed, whether they had to return their Porsche to the dealership for further service, if the repairs made actually worked and the overall satisfaction of their experience.
There are certain things that dealerships and car companies do that can certainly lower overall customer satisfaction.
For one, recalls. If you can control the quality of your product before it hits the showroom floor, the better for dealerships. If your car is constantly hitting the news thanks to recalls, that’ll definitely lower customer satisfaction.
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Then there’s the return visit. Oftentime’s a dealership will recommend further repairs that also increase the overall price of your repair bill. If the primary repairs don’t work, down goes customer satisfaction.
Different service managers at each visit tend to also decrease customer satisfaction. If you work with the same customer service manager, there’s an unwritten relationship built that the customer appreciates. And over time, customer satisfaction increases.
It isn’t sales that’s upsetting the U.S. Chief of Porsche. As a matter of fact, Porsche has had one of its strongest month of sales thanks to the all new Macan. Detlev wants his customers happy with their purchase and if they happen to bring their Porsche in for service, they want to make them feel welcome and appreciated, not being further fleeced.