Lexus top of the pops in customer satisfaction survey

Australian luxury car owners have spoken.

If dealerships are not courteous, don't offer high levels of amenity – including free WiFi – and don't follow up after a service to see how everything's going, repeat visits will be less likely.

Those are the findings of the latest JD Power survey, also known as the 2016 Australia Customer Service Index (CSI) for the luxury segment, and according to the results Lexus dealerships are at the top of the pile.

Overall Lexus scored the highest with 852 points (out of 1000) performing strongly in all five major criteria:

Mercedes-Benz ranked second-best (828) and Audi (826) was nipping at its heels. The average score for luxury car brands was 824, which is up from 817 and 803 the previous two years respectively.

The survey of customer service in the luxury car segment comes just weeks after similar research of the mass market car segment was published, which saw Mazda at the top of the table.

Clearly the Japanese brands are on to something.

Although the sample size is small, with just 518 luxury-vehicle owners who had their vehicles serviced at dealerships from August 2015 through September 2016 surveyed, JD Power says the overall increase in customer satisfaction for three years' running suggests luxury car dealers are getting something right.

Although capped-price servicing is not as prevalent with luxury car brands, many offer service "packages" which are proving popular. The schemes allow owners to pay one fixed price lump sum for several years’ of car servicing.

One of the many findings of the survey showed that if luxury car owners were given a cost estimate if their car was out of warranty or required more parts, satisfaction improved. The lack of predicted service costings saw customer satisfaction drop.

According to JD Power, a diligent service advisor or service manager can elevate a dealership and increase return customers.

"Service advisors are vital to the success of service centres across Australia," said Mohit Arora, executive director at J.D. Power.

"Customers' interaction with their service advisor needs to be professional, transparent, trustworthy and, most importantly, enjoyable. A happy customer is one who will return for future work when the warranty expires and will recommend your services to others," said Arora.

Other key factors include follow-up calls, which are made a few days after the service work was carried out and vehicles are back in the hands of their owners.

"While all dealers across the network mention how difficult it is to make contact with their customers, those that are successful in doing so reap the benefits of happier customers," explained Loi Truong, Australian senior country manager at JD Power.

Service centres and dealerships that offered lots of freebies, such as beverage machines, WiFi and business centres also found favour with luxury car owners. JD Power reckons that six or more amenities resulted in overall satisfaction scores of 893 points, which drops to 791 points when three or fewer facilities are offered.

What's your experience with getting your serviced? Feel free to have your own survey in the comments section below.