Renault rolls out a global plan to improve service quality across its network

Renault rolls out a global plan to improve service quality across its network

Since the launch of Renault Commitment 2009 in February 2006, Renault has rolled out a global plan to improve customer service quality, in order to position the future Laguna among the top three vehicles in its class in terms of product and service quality.

Renault's Excellence Plan for service establishes requirements at 20 key moments for customer satisfaction, a training package for the network, and financial incentives to reward service quality.

A crucial component of performance and customer satisfaction, quality at Renault is an area where progress is vital. To honor its commitment on quality, the 2005-2007 Renault Excellence Plan (PER) seeks to take quality into the heart of the company's processes and to set new standards. The plan comprises five strands, applied company-wide: design robust vehicles; manufacture compliant vehicles; increase reliability for all types of use; ensure sales and aftersales quality; and instill a culture of quality at the company.

The plan was rolled out across all the functions and applies to every product in every market where Renault operates. These efforts are starting to pay off: our vehicles are increasingly reliable, and the most recent models, like Clio 3 and Modus, have achieved very satisfying results right from launch.

Customers must see Renault as service-oriented To an audience of 20,000 representatives of the global sales network on February 10, Carlos Ghosn justified the rollout of the Excellence Plan by stressing the importance of service quality for customers. "Our products have strong appeal now, but customers have had bad experiences of service. Service quality is extremely important and will make the difference between carmakers in the years to come." To improve in the key area of service quality, Renault broke new ground in 2005 with a detailed action plan. The Renault Excellence Plan for service, rolled out at the start of 2006, is intended to be permanent. Renault's aim is to make sure every customer has a positive, pleasant experience at every dealership in the network. Customers must see Renault as service-oriented. To quote Carlos Ghosn: "Visiting our dealerships must become a pleasant experience.

Concretely, when customers walk in the door, they must enter another world, and feel listened to and looked after by professional staff. They must be fully satisfied with all the services delivered. That is the goal of PER4". The Excellence Plan for service is based on identifying customer expectations and the best way to meet those expectations, careful analysis of service quality at every dealership, motivation, training and measurement of progress.

The customer's experience, a yardstick of service quality Renault has conducted ten international surveys of customer expectations in terms of automotive service at every stage in the sales and after-sales process. The results highlight simple, seemingly obvious expectations, but which are not fully satisfied at every dealership. On the basis of these expectations, Renault has defined 20 essential "behaviors" to help meet them. Renault thus commits to improve customer service standards at 20 key moments in the sales and after-sales processes; These moments relate to quality reception, prompt responses and clear information, i.e. all the ingredients of a service orientation. For example, before buying, all customers want to test-drive the vehicle of their choice. Therefore, it is vital to always be able to offer them that possibility.

This attitude is intended to build trust between the network and its customers and will ensure lasting satisfaction. Dealership analysis Renault has implemented various resources and tools to thoroughly analyze the dealerships in the primary network in 26 countries (Reagroup dealerships and outlets), to check how standards are being applied and to implement action plans where necessary. The aim is to reduce disparities in results and offer the same standard of service quality at all the dealerships in the network. Motivation To motivate dealership staff, a special financial incentive has been introduced to reward service quality. Every sales and workshop team receives a bonus according to the percentage of fully satisfied customers.
On February 10, 2006, Chairman Carlos Ghosn also launched a challenge, the Renault Global Quality Award, in the 26 countries covered by the Excellence Plan, for dealerships that achieve the best performance or progress on sales and after-sales service quality. A trained, competent network with a service orientation The Renault Excellence Plan for service meant reorganizing the training system and making the network functions more professional. To achieve those aims, Renault set up Renault Academy on December 1, 2005.

Renault Academy is a global training platform designed to standardize the training policy for sales personnel and repairs technicians by creating a single catalogue of training for the network functions. Renault Academy performs three main tasks: managing network training, ensuring the quality and efficiency of training, and optimizing the resources invested.

Under the Renault Excellence Plan for service, Renault Academy has introduced new behavioral training modules. Designed for the sales and after-sales functions, behavioral training is intended for staff who deal with customers: sales advisors, service advisors, delivery advisors, sales supervisors, and workshop supervisors. For each of these functions, these modules seek to develop behavior that is focused on customer satisfaction and thus build a genuine service orientation at Renault. Progress measurement To move forward more efficiently on improving customer satisfaction, progress needs to be measured. To quote Carlos Ghosn: "The sales process is extremely important for winning new customers, who we need to increase our sales by 800,000 vehicles. We will set up monitoring indicators and surveys, not just to see how our customers rate the quality of our sales process, but mainly to understand what's going wrong. What can we do to convince customers that the Renault is an experience worth trying?"

We already have monthly surveys. Every month Renault surveys 4,000 customers about new vehicle sales and 32,000 customers about after-sales service. We are now stepping up mystery customer surveys to check how the 20 essential behaviors are being applied. In 2006, 2,500 mystery customer surveys were conducted at the 415 sales dealerships and 900 after-sales outlets. Meanwhile, JD Power's 2006 Car Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) ranked Renault 9th out of 26 carmakers. Renault remains the leader for cost-in-use and comes 5th for after-sales service satisfaction. Renault is also continuing to expand after-sales banners, to provide customers with fast, quality service. This year Renault celebrated 20 years of the Renault Minute banner, as well as the opening of the 1,000th Renault Minute in Algeria, and the 600th Renault Minute Bodywork in Turkey.