Saar: The South Korean carmaker was joined by Tata Motors and Mahindra on the podium. Maruti Suzuki came in eighth.

J D Power is back with the results of an annual study that it conducts. The said study is tagged as the 2018 India Customer Service Index (Mass Market). In this year’s results, Hyundai Motor topped the ranks, followed by Tata Motors at the second position and Mahindra at third. The study was fielded from March through August 2018 and recorded responses from 9,045 new-vehicle owners who purchased their vehicle between March 2015 and August 2017.

Every year, for 22 years, J D power has measured the new-vehicle owner satisfaction with the after-sales service process by rating dealership performance in five key areas – service quality, service initiation, service facility, service advisor and vehicle pick-up. While the latter two carry a weightage of 17 per cent each, the two before those each have an 18 per cent weightage. Do the math and you’ll end up with 30 per cent weightage left, which is assigned to the service quality category. Here’s how the mass-market carmakers performed on a scale of 1,000 points.

The ratings are quite fascinating, aren’t they?! Hyundai is the only carmaker that managed to score over 900 points. The homegrown automakers, Tata Motors and Mahindra were split by just 9 points. At the fourth position, Ford managed to outshine bigger players such as Toyota, Honda and Maruti Suzuki. The Indo-Japanese carmaker might be the largest carmaker in India but it is struggling to meet customer expectations in the after-sales section. The four carmakers which scored less than 800 points were separated by just seven points.

J D Power also reported some key findings of the latest study:

• Customers who are 30 years or younger expect higher quality service experience than more mature customers.
• 28 per cent of customers who visit dealerships for their vehicle service fall in the abovementioned age bracket.
• Satisfaction with the entire service process is lower among these younger customers than among those who are above the age of 30 years (825 vs 848 respectively, on a 1,000-point scale).
• The tendency to recommend or go back to the same dealer for post-warranty service is 45 per cent in the 30 years or below age group and 55 per cent in the more mature age bracket (as mentioned above).

• 58 per cent of customers reported their vehicle’s service advisor used a tablet during the service initiation process. Satisfaction score among these customers is 879 vs 778 for those who weren’t offered the digital experience.
• Satisfaction score between those who accept their vehicle’s service advisor’s recommendations for additional work and those who don’t is 866 and 775 respectively.
• In 2014, 21 per cent of customers waited at dealership premise while their vehicle was being serviced. In 2018, J D Power reports that 31 per cent of customers did the same. Thanks to faster service turnaround times, 55 per cent of customers reported they received their vehicle back within three hours.