Mazda places great importance on the challenge of bringing satisfaction and excitement to its customers every day. We listen intently to our customers at all times, always seeking new ways to burnish the quality of our products and services.
Mazda's framework for bolstering customer satisfaction is supported by four pillars: creating appealing products, improving product quality, improving customer satisfaction in sales, and fixing problems correctly the first time.
Whenever we introduce a new vehicle to an overseas market, our engineers working overseas gather detailed market information to improve the product further. We also conduct QC circle activities to sharpen customer service skills at sales companies' individual dealerships and hold annual regional presentations to promote CS promotion using examples of real cases. Mazda also gauges customer satisfaction by following up on individual sales. One month after purchase of a new vehicle, and again 13 months after purchase, Mazda surveys customers on their satisfaction with the Company's sales and service. The results are aggregated and distributed to all sales companies, to clarify areas requiring improvement and point the way to specific measures that need to be taken. Mazda aims to be the unrivaled market leader in customer satisfaction.
The Company also takes steps to ensure the smooth supply of replacement parts to customers. In FY2002, Mazda established a special hotline to link us with our sales affiliates. Working closely with business partners, this organizational structure ensures that customers receive urgently needed parts quickly and reliably.
- Creating Appealing Products We will build products under the Zoom-Zoom concept to enrich the lifestyles of our customers.
- Improving Product Quality We will make rapid improvements in the quality of our products by collecting, analyzing and reporting quality issues in the market in a timely manner.
- Improving Customer Satisfaction in Sales Mazda aims to achieve a top level of customer satisfaction in the automotive industry throughout the production, delivery and replacement cycle (encompassing sales, service, parts and distribution).
- Fixing Problems Correctly the First Time If a problem occurs with a customer's vehicle, we will try to fix it properly the first time. We do our best to ensure customers leave our service centers with a smile.
At Mazda, we listen closely to our customers because we believe this is the foundation for building better products. To this end, we opened the Mazda Call Center in February 1984 to provide a point of contact within Japan for inquiries, consultations, and opinions.
The Mazda Call Center is unique, as is the department whose function is to listen directly to the opinions of customers. With a current staff of about 50, the Mazda Call Center responds daily to customer comments by telephone and through the Web site. Some 63,000 inquiries were received in FY2008. Mazda feeds this valuable information back into its product development, sales and service sectors, and preserves it in an in-house searchable database to help us achieve even higher levels of customer satisfaction. In April 2009, the Company launched a new system to automatically tabulate customer inquiries on a daily basis. The system identifies customer segments and accessories that attract particularly high rates of inquiry. This system enables regular feedback as well as rapid sharing and use of the information gathered.
Mazda is determined to continue to reflect valuable customer perspectives in all phases of product development, sales and service. To make this process effective and reliable, we are enhancing our methods of publishing, sharing and searching this rich trove of customer feedback.
Mazda's new Visual IT Presentation (VIP) computer software, which is used at dealerships, is proving popular with customers. The VIP tool uses video, animated computer graphics, and 3D CAD data produced during actual product development to clarify safety performance and other characteristics that are often difficult to explain adequately in the showroom.
From its introduction in October 2005 to March 31, 2009, VIP has been introduced in 814 Mazda dealerships in 61 companies nationwide. In FY2008, it was updated with data for the new Biante.
Mazda launched the worldwide customer newsletter Zoom-Zoom in October 2007 and has been regularly distributing it to customers ever since.
Zoom-Zoom shares the joy of driving that Mazda cars bring and explores the limitless possibilities the Mazda car lifestyle can offer. The newsletter is packed with information based on a variety of themes in order to bring Mazda and its customers closer together.
Through this newsletter, Mazda aims to build trust in the Mazda brand and develop a shared vision with Mazda users the world over. To deepen customer understanding and affection for the Mazda brand, each page delivers a clear message to help readers experience the world of excitement that "Zoom-Zoom" represents.
