Pietro Gorlier 1024x
Bruce Newton2 Nov 2016
NEWS

Australia no longer "an afterthought" for Fiat Chrysler

Customer and dealer relations issues spark global exec's involvement

The direct involvement of one of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ most senior global executives in developing a six-point plan to fix the Australian subsidiary’s dealer and customer relations issues has been revealed for the first time.

Pietro Gorlier, who is a member of the FCA Group Executive Council headed by CEO Sergio Marchionne, visited Australia in May 2015 at the request of then FCA Australia chief Pat Dougherty. Dougherty wanted Gorlier to see the issues that were affecting the group’s sales first hand.

Jeep, the cornerstone of FCA’s Australian success has been emblematic of the slide that has yet to be arrested, collapsing from 30,408 sales in 2014 to probably 11,000 this year. Worsening currency and quality woes have bitten the brand. Its flagship model, the Grand Cherokee, has been recalled 16 times here since its 2011 launch.

There have also been various high profile incidences of customer dissatisfaction with the response of FCA and the dealer body to their issues. One Cherokee [Ed: note, not Grand Cherokee] owner generated national media coverage when he publicly destroyed his car. Another wrote a rap, “I made a mistake I bought a Lemon Jeep” that has had more than 2.4m views on Youtube.

The issues fell directly within Gorlier’s sphere as the global head of parts and service (Mopar) and FCA’s global Chief Operating Officer, Components.

Gorlier, speaking to Australian media at the SEMA show in Las Vegas overnight Australian time, said he was confident the initiatives that had been developed since his visit were delivering improvements.

“We changed significantly the way we do things in Australia,” Gorlier confirmed.

“I don’t need to tell you Australia is very far from every headquarters of every operation, so what we did was rethought all our processes to support Australia not as an afterthought when there is a problem, but in advance. I think the combination of all these actions will definitely drive a better customer experience and fix some of the issues we have in the past.”

Gorlier revealed several of the six points in the strategy; a significant upgrade of parts stocking and distribution speed from FCA’s Melbourne’s warehouse and much more sophisticated customer call centre and enquiry structure.

In the last 18 months FCA has expanded its warehouse, introduced 24 hour Monday-to-Friday shifts and moved to ‘direct haul shipping’ to cut delivery times.

“We’ve completely changed the way we stocked parts in Australia,” Gorlier confirmed.

“The problem in Australia is if you do not have the parts there it’s going to take two or three days even if you air-freight from the USA. So we have completely changed the way we stock materials.”

FCA previously had a single in-house call centre, it now has a three-step process, where initial enquires are handled by an outside supplier while two in-house centres handle normal and difficult calls separately.

“We completely revamped our customer area operations for better handling of customer calls and customer enquiries and customer complaints,” Gorlier explained.

“So that is another step where we have the direct contact with the customers. That is one of the pillars of the strategy.”

But Gorlier said the most important improvement FCA could make was to better support its dealer body.

“I never point out to the dealers as the problem, they may have at time weaknesses but our role is to make the dealers stronger and give them all the they need,” he said.

“We need to be sure that the guy who is dealing with customer coming into the dealership, whether it is for maintenance or repair has all the knowledge of the tools to help the customers. So that means being faster with technical information, being faster with service support. It means to be fast with parts, it means to be fast with all the elements of the business.”

Gorlier revealed FCA had introduced global policies to improve the speed of its response to recalls – as well as reducing the amount of recalls in the first place.

“We have significantly strengthened the process of developing our cars, testing our cars … you need to be [detecting] the technical issue and fixing it as soon as possible so you reduce the cars that need to be recalled.

“And that is what the company went through and created new functions inside the company that are really doing early learnings of issues.

“We are thinking we are doing much better but it would be totally [wrong] for me to say ‘okay now we are done’ … Are we perfect? No we are not, but at the same time are we fixing everything we need to fix and I think that we are on the right path and you see the impact in the market.

“It is going to take some time… Customer perception is not something that changes from one day to another, but again it is a combination of many different acts,” Gorlier told motoring.com.au.

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