Mr Flynn said that Jeep’s failure to keep up with the huge explosion in sales for the brand under the ‘I Bought A Jeep’ advertising campaign in the early part of the last decade had left a massive gap in customer care responses that had wounded the brand dearly.
But he said that since his arrival in Australia just six months ago he has put in play a completely new regime for handling customer complaints including a ‘flying doctor’ in each region with the power to intercede and settle reliability issues the minute the problem is flagged by its call centre or a dealer.
The brands woes culminated in Queenslander Ashton Wood who publicly destroyed a $50,000 Jeep online because he could not get satisfaction from FCA Australia to address the issues with his Cherokee.
Mr Flynn said: “You really have to ask how on earth was it allowed to get to that level of frustration.
“Today if we have a really big issue we say we will deal with this and will do everything we have to do to fix it.
“However, more than that, I want everyone in the team to understand that we need to go right back through the whole process and identify what could we have done at an earlier point in time to avoid that (frustration). And in every case there is a lesson. In every case.
“Then we put those (lessons) into our processes and procedures just making sure that in all the elements of the infrastructure from the call centre right the way through to the head of aftersales we have open communications; what are we going to do to jump on that now?
“I am terribly aware that we have had gaps as an organisation and how do we plug those gaps efficiently and effectively.
“You can see it every time. If you don’t do anything about it, it is going to get (ugly).
Kevin Flynn
“So there are some things we have done already. It is not just a plan moving forward. We have conducted a mega-study with Allianz, our contracted front line, to understand what they were doing, how it was being handled and what were the links directly into us.
“We have changed the whole way we were operating and now we have almost live connectivity when we need to react and there is a far easier way of escalating (an issue).”
Mr Flynn said FCA now has a daily stand-up meeting that anyone in the company can attend to review any “hot topics” that need to be addressed and what FCA is learning from it.
“So in the past six months we have appointed a new aftersales director (former GM Holden director Jo Markham). She is an engineer and I am very impressed with the way she is operating. She is really bringing logic and processes and we are akin in what we want to achieve in customer care and response.
“We are also aware that in the operational areas there has also been a lack of response and technical support so I have put four ‘flying doctors’ in the regions. We have just completed those appointments now so we are getting them up to speed.
“Their job is that as soon as we have an issue, they get in there. As soon as a dealer raises a flag and says: ‘I am uncomfortable, how do I get to the bottom of this, what do I do?’ And if we sense that is going to be an issue we have the ‘flying doctors’ in the region and they go straight in.
“The idea is that first of all we fix the customer and then we fix the product. Because whenever there is a vehicle that has gone wrong or a frustration, at the end of the day the issue you have to address is not just fixing the car you have to make sure the customer is confident in the process we are going through.
“Even though there has been a negative, we must try to turn it into a positive so we can retain and keep that customer’s belief in us. When you leave it too long or ignore it then that just festers and becomes an issue. So ignore it at your peril.
“Once that ‘flying doctor’ is there and fixes the issue, we can immediately identify what happened. Was there an issue in the dealer’s capability and how do we help to bridge that gap?
“But I don’t want them just fixing the car and the customer. That is the priority but also let us learn so that we can get better and better at what we do.”
Referring to the vacuum in customer support that followed the big increase in sales, Mr Flynn said: “What a different place we would be in now if we had actually plugged that gap and been really passionate about the Jeep experience.
“So aftersales has been a key part. I think 80 per cent of the challenges have been in aftersales,” he said.
“We have been on a journey on product quality as well and I think product quality today really does not deliver the number of challenges that perhaps it did in the past. There is no shadow of doubt there are no technical concerns with the product today.
“But if we can be super-fit in dealing with any (issues) and responding and assisting customers when they have concerns, then we are not going the fall into (that gap we were in)
“The answer is to always be ready if there is an issue, to respond when we need to respond and that perhaps is where we have lacked in the past.
“So quick response, jump in and make sure we are getting to grips with everything. That is the difference and I have put a lot of focus on aftersales.”
Next week: Dealers’ flagged service concerns
By John Mellor
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