J.D. Power: Porsche, Mini Offer Best Service; EV Owners Unsatisfied with Service Experience

Sean Tucker 03/15/2021 12:04pm

Owners of new Porsche and Mini vehicles are happier with the service they receive than buyers of other new cars, but electric vehicle owners are generally less pleased with their service experience than buyers of gasoline-powered cars. That’s the conclusion of the 2021 U.S. Customer Service Index from J.D. Power.

Earlier this year, Porsche also took first place in J.D. Power’s vehicle dependability study.

The Index looks at “satisfaction with service at a franchised dealer or independent service facility for maintenance or repair work among owners and lessees of one- to three-year-old vehicles,” Power explains. It measures buyer satisfaction with the quality of the service they receive, the facility where service takes place, how services are initiated, the service associate they deal with, and any vehicle pickup and delivery offered.

Though the survey has the year 2021 in the name, it measured satisfaction with service appointments in 2020.

Overall, the survey found, customers were more satisfied with their service experience than ever before – year six of a positive trend. With Americans driving fewer miles in the pandemic, they scheduled 6 percent fewer service appointments than the year before.

“Completing work right the first time, as well as focusing on customers’ needs, play significant roles in satisfaction — and dealers are nailing these key performance indicators nearly 100 percent of the time,” said Chris Sutton, J.D. Power vice president of automotive retail. “Dealerships made the most out of a disruptively bad situation.”

Key factors

Unsurprisingly, the two factors most likely to make a customer happier with their service experience during the pandemic both involved touch-free communication: remote or online payment options, and express services.

The survey found, however, that electric vehicle (EV) owners were less satisfied with their service experience than owners of gasoline-powered cars. EV owners, Sutton said, “present a unique challenge for dealers. Not only are their vehicles more difficult to service than traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, but also the lower frequency of visits means dealers have fewer chances to make a positive impression on these customers.”

The survey, Power says, was “based on responses from 62,519 verified registered owners and lessees of 2018 to 2020 model-year vehicles. J.D. Power goes to great lengths to ensure that survey respondents are true owners of the brand they are representing. The study was fielded from July through December 2020.”

The rankings among premium brands: