Ford tallies up customer satisfaction

Ford has been trumpeting its improving customer service satisfaction profile for a while now, but just this week the company's CEO, Graeme Whickman announced a number to go with the hype: 37 per cent.

That's how much the perception of Ford's customer service has gained ground over the past four years. It's all in response to new initiatives at dealership level... what Ford calls its 'Dealerships of the Future' programme.

This strategy involves new ways of interacting with customers and recasting the dealerships in a customer-friendly way. It's an across-the-board approach that encompasses sales and service. There's support from Ford Australia itself – in the form of extending the hours of operation for its CRC (Customer Relationship Centre) to 24/7.

And the dealers are providing customers with free loan cars while the customer's car is in for service. The programme has been rolled out across 75 per cent of Ford's dealer network, and the brand has been rewarded with a gong from Canstar.

But has Ford's customer service satisfaction index improved so much because it was coming from a low base?

"No, I've been asked this question before..." Whickman responded. "I think that we have to change with the times. Things are changing around us; I don't think it's necessarily an indictment or a criticism of the past; it's quite simply just consumers looking for something different.

"Their benchmarks are very different. Their expectations of technology are very different. How they get treated, the way they get treated... they're benching us against a new Telstra flag store or an Apple, or something like that. It's just a different world we live in, so we need to step up."

To boost the quality of service from dealership staff, Ford conducts what it calls 'team management engagement surveys' through a consultancy. A 'consumer experience coach' monitors feedback and keeps open lines of communication between staff, the dealer principals and Ford. Some of this feedback can be confronting for the principals.

"Each dealer, as an example, has a dashboard that they can review online, every single day..." said Whickman.

"And they get a snapshot at any point in the day, as to how things are trending... and it goes to the heart of the areas that we're really trying to work and improve upon, to lead.

"We have an independent coach – as somebody who understands engagement in businesses, and how internal satisfaction relates to external satisfaction.

"They actually go to the team in each dealership and uncover where the strengths – and weaknesses – are, as it pertains to engagement within the dealership that relates to customer satisfaction..."

Ford Australia has enjoyed particular success by taking the process change programme already in place for the USA and Canada, and tweaking it.

"When I first arrived here, we were embarking on this, and we were talking about 'process change' first," Whickman explained. "We have an internal approach called Quality Care – Quality Care Sales and Quality Care Service. That's our internal nomenclature.

"We were working around the process steps, and benchmarking against the Apples and Sonys, et cetera...

"My experience elsewhere was that if you did that simply – and not deal with the cultural piece – then we may not have got the impact that we were looking for.

"So we quickly installed what's called CEM, Consumer Experience Movement...

"That's why the process and the culture are coming together. So, as a global entity, Ford in Australia is seeing the biggest gains in any country, on the basis of putting those two things together.

"Now we're getting questions from our other global brethren like: 'How did you do that?'

"My summation is that it wasn't just simply process, it wasn't just simply technology, it wasn't simply culture... it was the three of them coming together and... letting them breathe a little bit.

"We're going to consolidate and continue to work in this area; we're not going to relent...

Whickman explained that the whole knowledge base for the consumer experience movement is a living thing – constantly changing and adapting as new information comes to hand.

"It's actually very fluid.

"We recruit very carefully the coaches that we have – people who are capable of managing a relationship...

"When you go through your team management engagement surveys, they actually uncover a lot of different things, and then they do the next survey, and then the next survey… to see if we can keep fine-tuning... such that we get towards that sort of customer service pinnacle."

The sort of feedback produced from the TMES can point to dissatisfaction in the workshop, as one example, where the troops there feel a little bit neglected. At times a qualified technician might actually be a higher-paid asset than some of the sales staff, but the dissatisfaction may arise from focus on the sales area or lack of kudos for the service staff.

More recently TMES has been highlighting anxiety among staff concerning Ford's future direction in Australia, as a consequence of the 2013 announcement the company would cease manufacturing cars here.

"We don't have all the answers, because at the end of the day we've rocketed in terms of customer satisfaction," Whickman observed.

"We're now asking ourselves 'What next?'"