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General Motors Brands Top J.D. Power 2021 U.S. Sales Satisfaction Index Study

General Motors’ four brands performed extremely well in the newly published J.D. Power 2021 U.S. Sales Satisfaction Index Study, which attempts to gauge customer satisfaction with the sales experience among new-vehicle buyers, as well as those who elected to shop elsewhere during their vehicle buying journey.

This study, which is now in its 36th year, gauges customer satisfaction with dealers based on six factors: delivery process, dealer personnel, working out the deal, paperwork completion, dealership facility and dealership website. The study also measures satisfaction among showroom visitors that elected to shop elsewhere, which is based on the following five factors: salesperson, price, facility, variety of inventory and negotiation. This year’s edition of the study is based on the responses from 35,387 shoppers that visited dealers between March 2021 and May 2021.

GMC led the way among mass-market brands, achieving a customer satisfaction index rating of 812 out of a possible 1,000. Buick was second with a score of 806, followed by Chevrolet at 804. Dodge was the highest ranked non-GM brand with a score of 796, while Nissan rounded out the top five with a score of 795. The worst-performing mass-market brand in the study was Chrysler with a score of just 755.

Cadillac, meanwhile, was ranked fourth among luxury brands with a score of 814. The luxury segment was led by Porsche with a score of 833, followed by Infiniti at 825 and Lexus at 820. Cadillac arch-rival Lincoln trailed it slightly in fifth with a score of 813. The worst-performing luxury brand in the study was Genesis with a score of 738. This was a much lower score than the next worst-performing brand, Audi, which achieved a score of 787.

J.D. Power says many customers that traded in their vehicles this year were extremely pleased with the sales experience, as they typically received more money for their trade-in than they expected due to the global semiconductor chip shortage. However, the chip shortage also saw many dealers get docked points due to their low inventory levels – though the best dealers were able to navigate around this issue with strong online inventory search tools and other digital retailing strategies.

“Despite the lack of inventory, dealerships have overcome what might be thought of as a challenging sales environment for shoppers,” explained J.D. Power’s VP of automotive retail, Chris Sutton. “Right now, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the supply chain tunnel, so dealerships need to continue to sell vehicles through their inbound pipeline and help customers with special orders. However, the silver lining for customers is that trade-in values remain high and this has had a positive effect on customer sales satisfaction.”

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Sam loves to write and has a passion for auto racing, karting and performance driving of all types.

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Comments

  1. Stellantis was just formed so it will take years for old FCA to benefit, if managment even tries to improve. Why bother–Toyota is a leader regardless of JD Power poll position.
    Glad to see Detroit brands dominating the upper ranks. Funny how Dodge out ranks it’s sister brands.

    Reply
    1. “Toyota is a leader regardless of JP Power poll position”

      Hahahaha. Hahaha. Please. Toyota is average at best.

      Reply
      1. I think they were talking more about reliability

        Reply
        1. or they could’ve been talking about sales and profitability.

          Reply
        2. Doesn’t matter. Toyota is still average at best. All the reports show that. Do you know for example that in CR over the years, that a vehicle like the Toyota Yaris would get above average ratings because of it’s good MPG and because it was tolerable to drive on the road? And yet the Jeep Wrangler would get below average ratings because it had more than average wind noise, poor MPG and a ride that was (according to them) not tolerable on the road? However, CR never did any reporting on just how that same Yaris would do off-road compared to the Wrangler. Why? I think you see my silly point.

          So remember that Toyota’s would get promoted to above average with CR and the Jeep’s would fall below with them. Now is all the stats based on what I brought up above? No. But the gap between the two would have been much more slim if not for biased reporting such as that.

          Reply
  2. GM is doing some great things. This is good news and GMC is on a roll. Butt Buick is not new to this game. It was and has been on the top for a very long time. The nice thing is that Consumer Reports is finally recognizing them.

    Reply
  3. Now get those brands in top levels in 3-5 year reliability surveys. Our last gm vehicle was the worst we ever had. We are not likely to return to gm. As an aside, my wife’s RAM, 2 years and 30K, has never been back to the dealer for a repair. Fingers crossed.

    Reply
    1. Rick: Go back and take a look at Buick, Chevy and Cadillac over the past 10 years. Heck, Buick has been consistently in the top for over 30 years. Cadillac has gone up and down. Chevy has been consistently going up. The big surprise here is how well GMC has been doing AND they have become a huge cash cow for GM. Funny, because I’m still one that doesn’t see the need to keep GMC around. My opinion is drop them, give that extra R & D/advertising money to Buick and Cadillac while giving Chevy the “Denali” sub-brand. But obviously I’m being proven wrong on that.

      Reply
      1. Yep and their quality is so good that gm’s share of the retail US market remains near all time lows. Fallen from almost 50% in the 60’s to about 17% today. It is going to be a huge fight for market share and profitability when the chip shortage is over with.
        gm is off to a bad start on EVs with the Bolt battery fiasco.

        Reply
  4. Rick I have for the most part have had pretty good luck over all with GM vehicles. For the most part with the pickups and suvs. Yes I have had em all up to the heavy duty trucks.

    Reply
  5. gm makes pretty good trucks but they have lost serious market share to RAM in the last few years.

    Reply

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