J.D. Power released the rankings for overall sales satisfaction for Philippine dealerships

If you want to purchase a car from a brand that cares, maybe this study by J.D. Power Asia Pacific, could help you out.

If you’re not familiar yet with J.D. Power Asia Pacific, read this.

The Philippines Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI), which has been running for 15 years, was redesigned and now has just 6 examine factors from last years 7 - sales initiation, delivery process, delivery timing, salesperson, dealer facility, and deal. Unfortunately though, due to the changes the results this year can’t be compared with last years results.

The SSI is scored on a 1,000 point-scale wherein the higher score indicates a higher customer satisfaction.

The study was based on the responses from 1,659 new-vehicle owners who purchased their vehicles between August 2014 and April 2015 and was conducted from February to June 2015.

Toyota tops the ranks for the second consecutive year with 778 points while Nissan comes in close at 760.

As the study found out, the initial shopping phase is relatively important when it comes to overall purchase experience of the buyers.

Satisfaction in sales initiation ranks lowest among all factors, with demonstration as the lowest-rated attribute. Only 49% of the new-vehicle buyers indicated that their sales advisor demonstrated features on an actual vehicle, and 13% indicated that they just received a verbal explanation (up from 5% last year). In addition, fewer test drives were offered in 2015 (59%), as opposed to a very high percentage in 2014 (95%). Lastly, only less than 50% of the buyers indicated that their sales advisor asked them questions that could help them decide on which particular model they will buy, aside from the typical questions such as budget, preferred payment method, and model of interest.

Other notable findings surfaced this year. They are as follows:

• 37% of the new-vehicle buyers seriously consider a different model for 2015 while 56% visit different dealerships for more than one brand.
• 20% of the buyers were urged to purchase a model without the options desired, buy unwanted accessories and/or accept an inconvenient delivery time. They experienced this through their purchase dealers.
• 25% of buyers experienced problems, such as limited selection of models in stock and/or insufficient staff.
• Majority of customer prefer deliveries at home. However, overall satisfaction is higher when vehicles are delivered to the dealerships (771 points), as opposed to when the car is delivered at home (746 points). This is because it is much easier to provide comprehensive explanations and address customer questions when deliveries occur at the dealerships.
• Overall satisfaction is higher when delivery is handled by the same salesperson, compared to when the delivery is handled by another employee. 65% of the buyers advised that their own salesperson delivered the vehicle to them (down from 89% in 2014).

The SSI study shows us that even if there is a relatively high customer satisfaction rating for local dealerships, there is still room for them to grow. Higher customer satisfaction translates to loyalty of the buyers; a higher chance of them recommending the same dealership/brand to their relatives or friends.