Chinese Customer Satisfaction Reaches All-Time Ighs
According to (some) conventional wisdom, Chinese cars are made from toxic drywall and are covered with lead paint. A more benign characterization of a Chinese car is “POS” – which is not meant as “point of sale.”
J.D. Power, the global go-to for all matters of customer satisfaction, begs to differ. Chinese have never been happier with their new car, says J.D. Power in a press release titled “New-Vehicle Sales Satisfaction in China Reaches an Historic High in 2011.”
Who are the cars that make Chinese so giddy? If you like American brands, don’t hit the jump. Wait – we found another study that has some red, white and blue. Jump with confidence …
On a 1,000 point scale, Chinese give all their dealers 847 points – that’s pretty darned good. Overall satisfaction with where Chinese buy their cars has climbed 24 points compared with 2010. The top 5 look like former axis powers have won the battle for the hearts and minds of Chinese customers (with Italy, true to form, in hiding): The SSI list is lead by Audi (887 points), followed by Dongfeng Nissan (880), FAW-Volkswagen (869). Dongfeng Honda and GAC Toyota are in a dead heat with 866 points each.
If you want to know how the other brands fared, then you have to go here. If you want to know the exact ranking, you will be disappointed. J.D. Power assigns blobs in the publicly available data. Five blobs for “among the best,” four blobs for “better than most,” three for “about average,” and two blobs for “the rest.” Chevrolet is in the “better than most” camp. Buick and Ford are rated as “about average,” blob-wise in the same league as Chery and Gleagle, but also as average as Lexus and Mercedes. If you want more than blobs and desire finer grained data: J.D. Power will happily sell you the data. They are in the data selling business.
2011 China J.D. Power Customer Satisfaction Rankings
RankSSICSI1AudiGuangqi Honda2Dongfeng NissanDongfeng Honda3FAW-VolkswagenBuick4Dongfeng HondaDongfeng Citroen5GAC ToyotaSGM-ChevroletDid you just say “dealer-schmealer – I want car ratings!” Good point. Just like back home, J.D. Power will sell you a whole alphabet soup of studies in China – but with Chinese characteristics. There is IQS, APPEAL, VDSI, in addition to the SSI and the Chinese Customer Service Index CSI. The 2011 CSI came out a few weeks ago. For the rest, you have to wait a while and budget more money.
China’s satisfaction with dealer service likewise has soared to a record high, up 14 points to 833 overall. And here, we finally see some Americans. The top five are Guangqi Honda (896), Dongfeng Honda (891), Buick (887), Dongfeng Citroen (883) and SGM-Chevrolet (879). You want blobs? Here they are. You want more? Pay up.
I bet now you really want to know how the cars are rated in China. For that, you will have to wait for the IQS. Or the rest of the alphabet soup. Here, everybody will be a winner. They are broken down into 10 sub-classes each, assuring that nobody uses face.
Pure Chinese brands studiously ignore the J.D. Power ratings anyway. They think they are too expensive and a waste of money. Joint ventures buy the studies, because HQ told them so.
If you have read up to here, please join us in a little TTAC nitpicking: We give the headline “New-Vehicle Sales Satisfaction in China Reaches an Historic High in 2011” a middling three blobs on the TTACGI (The Truth About Cars Correct Grammar Index.) “An historic high” is reached only in France, where they have “istoric ighs.”
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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Not one Chinese brand so what is the point here, Chinese cars still and will SUCK for a long time. Me unreliable long time, me cost you many $5 dolla to fix for long time, me sucki sucki long time to come.
Everybody knows that [s]Japanese[/s] [s]Korean[/s] Chinese cars will always be low-quality discount crap and not serious contenders in the automotive market.