Hino’s clean sweep

Hino has become the first truck supplier to make a clean sweep at the Scott Byers awards, taking the number one spot in all four categories – sales, service, parts and overall. CLAIRE RENCKEN reports.

The awards – open to truck manufacturers as well as distributors – were presented at the Scott Byers and Econometrix truck industry seminar, which took place on October 17 at the Randpark Golf Club. Speakers included Dr Azar Jammine, chief economist at Econometrix; Ian Byers, founder of the research company now known as the Scott Byers Network; and Frank Beeton, who is no stranger to FOCUS.

The annual Scott Byers awards are based on a full year’s results of its independent comparative customer satisfaction survey of truck fleet owners in South Africa between October 1 and September 30 the following year. Each of the companies whose results are included in the comparative evaluation must have had at least 100 interviews conducted per department – sales, service and parts. The final list is made up of those companies with scores greater than the national average.

During the interviews, fleet owners are asked to give their ratings of companies that are either their first or second choice supplier and with whom they have had dealings within the past three months, so as to ensure the survey is up to date and relevant.

Says Ian Byers: “These surveys have been conducted since 1986 – for 26 years – and have told an amazing tale of improving levels of customer satisfaction during this period.” In the beginning, customer satisfaction levels ranged from about 52 percent to 58 percent. Now, Hino has averaged more than 93 percent in all four categories: sales, service, parts and overall. And the national average in the overall rankings exceeds 91 percent.”

Byers says there have been slight downturns in the average scores in the sales and service categories over the past year, with poor product knowledge and poor diagnoses being the major failings in these respective categories. The average score in the parts section has improved slightly. In this area, poor product knowledge, and thus the ability to identify the correct parts for a particular truck, is the main area of concern.

The average overall customer satisfaction score, which peaked at 92,5 percent in 2011, slipped slightly early in 2012, but rose to more than 91 percent by the end of September.

Hino SA’s vice president, Dr Casper Kruger, had the following to say about Hino’s success: “We are absolutely delighted to be the first company in history to have topped all four tables, and I would like to congratulate our dealer network and our own after-sales support teams for these outstanding results on all fronts. We are particularly proud that we were able to come out top in the parts segment of the survey, as the research was conducted while we were moving into our massive new parts warehouse in Benoni.”

The rankings of the companies that scored higher than the national average for 2011/2012 are:

• Overall: Hino, Freightliner, Mercedes-Benz, Isuzu and Volvo

• Parts: Hino, Freightliner, Mercedes-Benz, MAN and Volvo

• Service: Hino, Isuzu, Freightliner and UD Trucks

• Sales: Hino, Isuzu tied with Volvo, Freightliner, International and Mercedes-Benz.