There is a belief among many car owners that a good independent mechanic provides a much better service experience than a dealer.
But a recent J.D. Power and Associates survey of owners showed that dealerships are making customers happier than independent shops.
Dealerships, says Chris Sutton, senior director at J.D. Power and Associates, have been getting better across the board as dealers have invested in better service-bay environments and taken an increased amount of customer handling training. Customer satisfaction with maintenance visits is typically higher than satisfaction with repair visits, since visits for routine maintenance tend to be less expensive and less time-consuming.
Five measures are examined to the survey of luxury vehicle customers: service quality; service initiation; service advisor; service facility; and vehicle pick-up.
For many luxury buyers who are not rock-solid brand loyal to one car company, the quality of service and dealer can be an important tie breaker between, say, buying a Lincoln over a Cadillac, or a BMW over a Mercedes.
Mercedes-Benz North America President Steve Cannon says that he is focusing his company and dealer network on "service, service and more service." Mercedes ranks seventh out of thirteen luxury brands, and below the category's average. Why? Cannon says that Mercedes has a dynamic and expanding product line that has been bringing in lost of first-time and young Mercedes buyers. "They have high standards for how they are handled, and we have to work harder to meet them and we are investing a lot to make sure we don't lose customers who are happy with our products but not the ownership experience down the road."
So who is the best of the best when it comes to service and customer handling? Check out the slide show to see the top-five luxury brands, the only five that ranked above an industry average for customer satisfaction. And be sure to check out which brand is the #1 King Of Service.