Cadillac earned high marks in the J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI), which measures customer satisfaction with sales experience while purchasing a new vehicle. In fact, the luxury marque was ranked seventh out of 14 premium brand competitors.
Now in its 38th consecutive year, the study is based on surveys from 37,234 buyers who purchased or leased a new vehicle from March through May 2023. Surveyed parties are asked to analyze their purchase experience with the selling dealer. Questions were asked regarding delivery process; dealer personnel; working out the deal; paperwork completion; dealership facility; and dealership website. Meanwhile, a secondary study asked respondents to analyze their experience with brands and dealerships that were ultimately rejected. These responses were based on salesperson; price; facility; variety of inventory; and negotiation.
Automakers were then scored on a 1,000-point scale, with Cadillac earning 817 points, outperforming the premium segment’s 813-point average. Porsche led the segment with 840 points, followed by Infiniti’s score of 832, Alfa Romeo with 824, Lincoln with 820 and Jaguar with 818. Lexus and Audi were below average with 808 and 807 points respectively, while Genesis ranked the worst of the surveyed brands, earning 756 points.
Interestingly, the study found that buyers of internal combustion vehicles were generally more satisfied with their sales experiences than buyers of electric vehicles. EV buyers indicated that they feel that dealers are not doing enough to make them feel comfortable with EV maintenance requirements and do not feel adequately prepared to handle the EV charging process after the sale of the vehicle.
Additionally, a smaller percentage of buyers are paying over MSRP as new vehicle supply at the dealer level continues to improve. However, while satisfaction with vehicle price has improved, the former still below pre-pandemic levels.
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David McGee
As I look at both the beautiful Cadillac symbols on the building pictures I’m struck by the fact that they are no longer GM compliant as GM has broken something that needsn’t fixed.