Ford dethrones Toyota in after-sales customer satisfaction

Workers fix cars at a garage in Da Nang City. Photo by VnExpress/Nguyen Dong.

American car brand Ford has surpassed constant winner Toyota in an annual survey that analyses after-sales customer satisfaction among car buyers in Vietnam.

Ford topped the list of eight mass market brands ranked with an overall score of 832 out of 1,000 with good performances in service initiation and vehicle pick-up, according to the 2019 Vietnam Customer Service Index (CSI) report prepared by global market research firm J.D. Power.

Japanese car manufacturer Mazda ranked second with 824, followed by Mitsubishi and Toyota tied in third place with 823 points.

American automobile manufacturer Chevrolet and South Korea’s Hyundai were both above the mass-market satisfaction average of 820, while Kia and Honda were at the bottom of the ranking.

Some famous car brands like Isuzu, Nissan, Peugeot and Suzuki have not appeared in the ranking due to the small or insufficient sample size, the report said.

This year’s customer service index was based on responses from 1,513 new-vehicle owners who took their vehicle for service to an authorized dealer or service centers in Vietnam between March 2018 and July 2019.

The survey measures new-vehicle owner satisfaction with the after-sales service experience by examining dealership performance in five factors: service quality, service initiation, vehicle pick-up, service advice and service facility.

An increasing number of Vietnamese customers were dissatisfied with after-sales services as dealers failed to meet the promised service time and expected service fees, the report said.

Around nine percent of customers indicate their total service time was more than what was initially promised. The average service time increased to three hours from nearly 2.5 hours in 2018, it said.

In the first eight months of this year sales of imported cars rose 178 percent year-on-year to 82,800 units, while that of locally-made vehicles dropped 14 percent to 119,700 units, according to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association.

By Nguyen Quy / VnExpress