All You Need Is Love: Volkswagen And Ford Suddenly On Top In Quality

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Can one dramatically increase customer satisfaction ion the course of three weeks? Yes, you can! How? Simple: Just get a different survey.

Three weeks ago, acid reflux, shouting matches and massive finger pointing were rampant at car companies like Volkswagen and Ford. On J.D.Power’s Initial Quality Study (IQS), Ford had landed (with a thud) on rank 23, and Volkswagen crashed to outdone in measured mediocrity only by Mitsubishi, Suzuki, and Dodge.

Now, all is fine again.

Strategic Vision presented the results of their 2011 Total Quality Index (TQI) today. Who’s on top? The dogs of last month.

Volkswagen was rated the best Full-line Corporation. Volkswagen has three models (Golf, Jetta and Tiguan) that are Total Quality leaders. In second place: Ford, followed closely by Honda and Nissan.

What is the secret to this reversal of fortunes? It’s love, baby.

“When customers explicitly state ‘I love this about my vehicle,’ it results in increased sales,” says Alexander Edwards, President of Strategic Vision. “We explicitly measure the emotional impact of each vehicle attribute and ask the customer what they Love about their vehicle. Jetta and Sonata owners report more Love than most all of their competitors. This is why it is no surprise to us that the Jetta and Sonata have had their best sales ever with their 2011 models.”

Strategic Vision argues that if you love your car, you don’t mind little problems. If you hate it, the tiniest things can drive you to divorce. Sounds familiar.

See, love cures everything. Even a horrendous IQS rating-

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • APaGttH APaGttH on Jul 12, 2011

    Just another data point that shows that these quality surveys are just that, a singular data point that should be taken with a large grain of salt. Identifix, CR, JDP, SV, IC, TD, none of them have the "perfect" answer. Nor do enthusiast sites (after you chaffe out the I love it I love it I love it and the car X sucks because I say so posts) or owner reviews. It is all just a single point of data, and should be treated as such.

    • See 1 previous
    • APaGttH APaGttH on Jul 12, 2011

      @Pch101 You must be great fun at cocktail parties. No kidding it was a survey, thanks for stating the obvious. When evaluating a car purchasing decision, it is a singular point of data, and should be given the same weight. If you want to have a cognitive bias fit over one publication or another being better, or some dataset having higher integrity than another - have at it.

  • Pch101 Pch101 on Jul 12, 2011
    When evaluating a car purchasing decision, it is a singular point of data, and should be given the same weight. A survey of thousands of people is absolutely not equivalent to a single anecdote. Not even close.
    • See 3 previous
    • Pch101 Pch101 on Jul 13, 2011
      @APaGttH For someone who acts like he has a great grip on statistics, data points and the makings of good surveys... Ouch. Perhaps it would help if a bit of translation of the article in question was provided: - Survey accuracy is impacted by the number of respondents. Generally speaking, more is better, as a larger sample is more likely to reflect the total population. - Mr. Karesh is critical of CR because there are certain cars for which CR doesn't report data, due to the low number of responses. (Presumably, this makes True Delta better in his mind, because it reports information on certain models that CR won't.) I may have missed it, but what Mr. Karesh doesn't seem to mention is that CR won't report the results for any given model if there are fewer than 100 respondents. True Delta does not solve this problem by getting 100 of its own respondents. Instead, it publishes results when it has only 25 respondents, a policy that is likely to create a less accurate result. CR could increase the number of models on which it reports if it, too, would reduce its required number of respondents to 25. But that wouldn't improve accuracy, and one would expect that it would make it worse. The criticisms don't make much sense, frankly. It's certainly debatable that having lower standards or a higher tolerance for inaccuracy makes for a "better" survey. Of course, it will produce more results, because the barrier to publication is lower. But the margin of error would be higher, and I don't think that either source is publishing that (which would be a weakness of both of them.)
  • Tekdemon Tekdemon on Jul 12, 2011

    I think it's more that anybody who wasn't madly in love with these cars already dumped them for something that didn't drive them crazy.

  • Eldard Eldard on Jul 12, 2011

    The 3 year dependability survey is the only thing that matters. Only a moron would consult the other charts from JD when buying a car.

    • See 1 previous
    • Eldard Eldard on Jul 13, 2011

      @Advo They'd still be morons since the initial surveys are conducted 3 months after acquisition of the car.

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