SSANGYONG Australia says it is working on introducing a new, more competitive warranty period for its new range of models due from November and will also offer a modified form of conventional capped-price servicing that works better for customers and dealers.

Speaking to Australian journalists at SsangYong headquarters in South Korea, the brand’s local managing director, Tim Smith, said capped-price servicing is a double-edged sword for customers and dealers.

“Capped-price servicing is really good for the customer because they know what they’re in for, but it also limits the responsibility of the dealer,” he said.

“We’re probably looking at that in a hybrid model to begin with, so it will be strong for the customer – in that they know what the lifespan of the servicing costs are – but it won’t be as prescriptive for the dealers.

“I think in general with some dealers it’s a strong marketing tool; for others it’s prescriptive and very dictatorial.

“We probably want to combine the best of both worlds with our capped-price servicing. Our objective, particularly early on, is to support the customers and tell them what the cost of ownership of a SsangYong is.

“In saying that, we need to create a franchise model that’s robust, to look after the dealers that have been looking after our customers, and then give them a further enhancement tool – then we can adjust and move and develop it further as our carpark grows and our network grows and our volume grows.”

Mr Smith said the exact servicing plan for its vehicles is still yet to be decided but SsangYong would work with its dealers to find the right solution.

“I don’t want to go in and tell dealers what to do immediately. It’s going to be difficult for us to do that initially and we’ll be trusting our franchise partners to be helping us get through our initial launch period,” he said.

“It might look something like menu service pricing or something like that. It could be called capped-price, we haven’t decided yet, but there will be something there to be able to say to a customer ‘this is what a Rexton costs’ and this is what we expect dealers to support in that process. And there will be some caveats to that.

“Then we’ll grow and we’ll reassess and we’ll go from there. The key is don’t make it overly complicated, I think that’s the main thing. I don’t want to go in with a complicated model that creates lots of issues. We want to go in with an ease of doing business at the core. Sure, get the customers right and understand that – but also make it as easy as possible for a dealer to transact in that program.”

Mr Smith would not be drawn on exact service intervals for SsangYong’s newest crop of products but said the periods will likely mirror its competitor’s offerings of 12 months.

“I won’t go into detail right now, but we’re currently making sure that they (service intervals) are long enough … they will be competitive and they will be the same as a lot of our competitors,” he said.

“We’re very confident in the reliability of the product, and I think that’s what the great thing about this new entry is, they’re new-generation products … we’re very confident.”

By Tung Nguyen in Seoul