Quality Through And Through - Renault Ups The Ante

MAPLE CROSS, UNITED KINGDOM – Aug 15, 2011: Renault has made no qualms about its relentless pursuit of quality in recent years, for both product and service. Indeed, quality is at the very heart of its business, as emphasised by Chairman and CEO, Carlos Ghosn, speaking at the launch of Renault Commitment 2009, when he stated that the objective for the next-generation Laguna would be top three in its class for quality, including premium brands.

In its new strategic plan, Renault Drive the Change 2016, quality remains a priority and is one of the three pillars among Design and Innovation in the strengthening of Renault’s brand image. The French marque also now includes a ‘Renault Quality Made’ stamp on all of its communications to emphasise this key focus.

Renault’s product quality is improving consistently - fact
“In the last few years, Renault has boosted the quality of its products significantly. In fact, results from third-party organisations such as Auto Express and Which?, speak for themselves.

Renault has publicly acknowledged the electronic issues which affected some of its older models, including the second-generation Mégane and Laguna, principally concerning certain electric window mechanisms and early- generation electronic instrument displays. However, it has not shied away from the issues and implemented an extensive customer goodwill programme to cover such concerns.

Now in the last couple of years, the positive quality trend which Renault has seen for itself from internal data, including its greater standing versus its rivals, has begun to be mirrored by the results in independent surveys.

The most recent UK independent study, the Which? car survey 2011, shows no less than four current Renault models in the top five in their classes for reliability: Clio, Grand Modus, Mégane and Scénic. On top of that, the current Scénic sits proudly in fourth for MPV overall customer satisfaction, with its compact MPV sibling, Grand Modus not too far behind in sixth. The UK’s largest and arguably most influential consumer organisation also now highlights Clio, Mégane, Scénic and Laguna all as ‘Worth a look’. Rounding off the plaudits, the consumer champions testify, “Renault’s drive to improve quality seems to be paying dividends, as reliability is much improved.”

But we’re not just talking about one isolated study.

In the last two years alone, Renault has risen significantly in successive Driver Power surveys from Auto Express too. Previously sat towards the bottom of the table for its products, its sterling efforts saw it rise an impressive seven places in 2010 out of 35 brands, then built on the progress again this year by a further three places. As the real-world experiences of its customers owning the latest Renault models continues to filter through, the French marque is expecting its standing to rise even further in the coming years.

Quality matters - for service, as well as product
“Today, quality of service is one of the elements of competition; in the future, this will be the main element of competition.” Carlos Ghosn, February 2009.

As well as making great strides in product quality, the French marque is going the extra mile with its dealer network. As a result, Renault has put into place a series of initiatives in this country to achieve one simple, but nevertheless often difficult, objective – improve customer satisfaction. The result of this is evident in theimpressive rise of 16 places for dealer satisfaction seen in the last two Auto Express Driver Power surveys.

Its latest action, an internet-based dealer rating system, to be introduced in September 2011, is arguably its most ambitious yet. Located on www.renault.co.uk, and similar in spirit to other successful review sites, it will communicate the individual satisfaction ratings of each of the approximate 4,500 Renault customers interviewed each month. The satisfaction rating, together with the actual customer verbatim, will be available to view for both sales and service customers for each of Renault UK’s dealerships.

Another wide-reaching programme is the dealership improvement programme, which concentrates on enhancing the performance of the least performing 20% of its UK dealers, with the objective of improving customer experience within the dealership.

With each dealership, Performance Managers with broad experience of the automotive business, go into the business to diagnose why it is not providing the levels of experience required by Renault customers. Proudly, and no doubt one of the reasons behind the French marque’s climb in recent customer survey dealer rankings, is its success rate of over three-quarters for dealers who enter the programme successfully graduating.

Renault has also invested heavily in improving the whole-life customer experience. Launched in 2006 was E4: Excellence, everyone, everywhere, everytime’, which was created to ensure Renault stood out through the quality of its customer service, leading to improved loyalty and profitability. Identified after extensive European research with hundreds of customer interviews, E4 focuses on 20 essentials that the dealer network have been provided with, 10 for Sales and 10 specifically for After-Sales.

‘E4’ is part of the five point ‘Renault Excellence Plan’ which are company-wide objectives to improve quality on a global scale. These are to design robust vehicles, manufacture compliant vehicles, increase reliability for all types of use, ensure sales and after-sales quality and instill a culture of quality in the company.

After investing their time and resources in all of these projects, Renault fittingly seeks to recognise its dealership network’s efforts through its annual Renault Global Quality Awards.

Renault Business Promise, successfully launched a year ago to ensure that business customers of every fleet size, have three years guaranteed care-free mobility, through the most complete manufacturer care package comprising warranty, recovery, servicing and delivery promises, is soon to be followed by a similar programme for retail customers. Set to launch on 1st January 2012, the Renault Quality Commitment, will guarantee that the quality of a customer’s car or van is mirrored by the high level of service they receive from Renault.

Together with the Renault Business Promise, and another reason why the French manufacturer has secured two high-profile fleet awards in less than a year for improving its fleet performance through its clever customer-centric ideas, is Renault Pro+. Launched 18 months ago, this one-stop shop for business customers has gone from strength to strength, hardly surprising given several of its core benefits: extended opening and service hours, specialist business sales and after-sales advisors, larger commercial vehicle demonstrator numbers and displays including converted products and dedicated business customer areas.

The last piece of the jigsaw in terms of enhancing the Renault customer experience is ‘Project Air’. This far-reaching initiative involves completely upgrading the interior and exterior of a dealership in line with the ‘Drive the Change’ brand identity. It covers every customer-facing aspect of the business, including new fixtures, fittings, floors and lighting to give a contemporary, airy and light feeling, in line with the French marque’s affinity with stylish design.

Currently a fifth of UK dealerships have benefited from the programme and customer feedback has been overwhelming positive. The rest of the core Renault network will be completed by the end of 2014.