Mazda PH tops Customer Service Index for 2016

STEVEN Tan (left), CEO of Mazda Philippines (Berjaya Automotive Philippines), and Hiroshi Inoue, executive officer in charge of Emerging Market Business Mazda Motor Corp.

When Inquirer Motoring published its midyear industry report last week, all signs were pointing toward breaking another sales record of 350,000 units this year.

With the Philippines enjoying a strong economy, and with almost 50 car and truck brands in the market today, automakers should look into this very rapid pace of development in the market with close scrutiny and anticipation of underlying issues brought about by this surge in demand for more and more vehicles, including aftersales service in their dealerships.

J.D. Power came up with this annual report 16 years ago, and the study measures new vehicle owner satisfaction with the aftersales service process at an authorized service center by examining dealership performance in five factors (in order of importance, updated in 2016): service quality (29 percent), service initiation (26 percent); vehicle pickup (17 percent); service facility (14 percent); and service adviser (14 percent).

The brand service performance is measured on a 1,000-point scale, with a higher score indicating higher customer satisfaction.

According to J.D. Power’s 2016 Philippine Customer Service Index (CSI) Study that came out last week, satisfaction levels fell to the lowest levels since 2012. This year, the overall service satisfaction averaged 822 points, down from 837 points in 2015 with reported declines across all the five customer service factors. The satisfaction with service facility suffered the biggest drop (24 points), indicating that the larger influx of customers into the service centers is straining capacity, added the report.

First time for Mazda

The big winner this year was Mazda Philippines. The study ranked 11 brands, and for the first time, Mazda got the highest rating this year with a CSI score of 845.

J.D. Power noted that Mazda performed particularly well in all the five CSI factors. Coming in second was Honda (831), followed by Nissan (827).

In a business review presentation and forum for the Asean region conducted by Mazda Motors in Japan with some members of the regional media held in Fukuoka, Japan, Hiroshi Inoue, executive officer in charge of emerging market business, revealed that one of Mazda’s strategies in enhancing the customer experience is to make sure that the facilities of each dealership is refreshed and designed to ensure the customers are well taken care of.

It can be remembered that Mazda appointed the Berjaya Group as its new distributor in the country in 2013, so it barely had three years to absorb the existing dealers and set up new ones before earning this title.

Steven Tan, CEO of Berjaya Automotive Philippines (Mazda Philippines), was also present during the Asean forum, and was very elated to hear about the recent results of the study.

Mazda has been bagging awards and accolades for its new-generation cars, from the Mazda 2 winning the Car of the Year Philippines and its MX-5 winning the 2016 World Car of the Year as well as Japan’s Car of the Year for 2015-2016, thanks to its SkyActiv technology and Kodo-Soul of Motion design.

Decline in CSI ratings

“Despite more service reminders being sent to customers for routine maintenance, customers are not reciprocating by making appointments for their service visit,” said Loïc Pean, senior manager at J.D. Power.

“We still see six in 10 walk-in customers, and this exacerbates the capacity crunch at the dealerships. Dealerships have to be resolute to educate their customers to get into the habit of making appointments, else it will be a formidable task for dealers to manage unscheduled workload and maximize throughput.”

The study further revealed that there were dramatic shifts in customer demographics. Seventy-two percent of customers are first-time new vehicle owners, up from 49 percent in 2015.

The percentage of younger car owners (under 40 years) has also increased to 62 percent in 2016, compared with 52 percent in 2015.

“In addition, women constitute a larger proportion of new vehicle owners this year at 43 percent, up from

31 percent last year.

The report said among customers who are highly satisfied with their dealer service (overall satisfaction scores of 870 and above), 59 percent say they “definitely would” return to their dealer for postwarranty service, and 62 percent “definitely would” recommend their dealer to friends and family.

In contrast, among customers who are less satisfied (scores of 774 and lower), only 44 percent say they “definitely would” return to the dealer for postwarranty service, and only 48 percent say they “definitely would” recommend the dealer to others.

Despite Mazda PH’s growth in dealerships and being the youngest distributor for a major automotive brand in the country, it bucked the trend, explaining why CSI has declined for some brands because of a growing market.

According to Berjaya Automotive sales and marketing director Japheth Castillo, “Mazda PH now has 18 dealerships. We opened Negros last month. Added from last year is the new Mazda Makati and Mazda Pulilan in Bulacan.”