As Dealers Meet, Ford's Focus Switches From Customer Conquest to Retention
The plan may as well carry the heading “Operation Don’t Leave Us.” As Ford dealers meet in Las Vegas, the automaker has shifted its focus from luring buyers from other brands to keeping Ford owners in the family.
Helping firm up that relationship are a series of “Built Ford Proud” ads poised to hit the airwaves this weekend, with Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston serving as the brand’s spokesman. For dealers, product assurances top the most-wanted list. Apparently, they got them.
Miffed that Ford culled the brand’s sedan/small car lineup with little notice or consultation, dealers assembled in Las Vegas were told that low-priced Fords will not go extinct, though Automotive News‘ man on the ground didn’t hear specifics about the brand’s entry-level strategy.
Ford’s president of global markets, Jim Farley, reportedly pledged to offer “several” vehicles in the sub-$25,000 price range. Recently, the planned importation of the Ford Focus Active from China hit a dead end as a result of import tariffs, leaving just the tiny EcoSport crossover as entry-level fare.
Globally, Ford faces steep challenges in China as well as Europe, making its sliding U.S. sales even more of a concern. Year to date, Ford sales fell 2.1 percent stateside. Hoping to retain loyal buyers, the automaker plans to allocate more product to high-volume dealers, while development cycles will be shortened to keep the brand on its toes. A loyalty program will emerge in the coming year, targeted mainly at truck buyers.
By offering rewards, new perks, and boosting the frequency of customer interactions, Ford hopes to keep the love flowing back.
[Image: Ford Motor Company]
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Here's feedback from a long-term customer for Ford to chew on: I have purchased or leased seven Ford vehicles over the last 25 years, but will not be purchasing any more Ford products, because Ford has decided to discontinue making the types of vehicles I wish to buy. I've enjoyed the various Ford vehicles I've owned, having found all of them reliable and confidence-inspiring to drive. It's disappointing for Ford to abandon a vehicle class where other manufacturers still are able to make a profit (while constantly improving the product). If Ford is unable to make a profit from selling hundreds of thousands of cars annually in the US, then there is something deeply and fundamentally wrong with Ford. The decision to abandon the car market (except for Mustang) in the US smacks of short-term thinking that rarely works out. Ford, you've decided to pursue the latest fads in the auto business rather than sticking to what you've been successfully doing for a century. Look back at your history and you'll see the obvious, i.e. nothing remains the same in the auto business. What will happen to your SUV profits when the price of gas once again goes up? What will you sell then?
Don't see too many old Oldsmobiles on the road but still see a few Pontiacs and Saturns which have now reached hooptie status. Wait a few years and you will see Focus, Fiesta, and Fusions that will become the new hoopties.
The dealers ARE the problem. I do my own maintenance, but because I didn't spend hundreds of dollars every year at the dealership, they pretended my warranty issues don't exist. As soon as my Mustang was out of warranty they could hear the strut top popping and offered to fix it for $800. When I told them it was a documented pre-existing condition they told me to pound sand. Ford's warranty is worthless to me. I'm buying Toyota next time.
I adored my C-Max. But I dumped it far sooner than I had planned, at the cost of truly epic depreciation, because I was scared to own the damn thing out of warranty. It had so many recalls that we didn't even get to all of the repairs before the warranty ran out. At 70k miles the engine shuddered upon shutoff, the transmission and wheel bearings had already failed and been replaced, and torsional rigidity was so poor that the car creaked like a pirate ship simply turning into a normal driveway. I later learned the latter may have been because of failed A-pillar welds; good thing I never got in a wreck in the thing, I guess. Yet I was still sad to see it go. Ford knows how to make an appealing product...but if it wants to keep customers, it should finish engineering the car before releasing it, err on the side of overbuilding rather than underbuilding for strength, and assemble it with some semblance of care. The one truly outstanding vehicle in Ford's lineup is the Fusion: looks great, handles great, fine value. And yet they have let it wither on the vine...and now they are quitting it and all other passenger cars. I really don't know what they're thinking.