Proton yesterday organised a Customer Appreciation Day at the Proton Centre of Excellence in Shah Alam, Selangor, to thank their loyal and supportive customers. During the event, several new initiatives were announced with the aim of further improving customer relationship and creating a stronger rapport with Proton customers.

"We have been talking about customer satisfaction and appreciation for a while now. This is just one way for us to show our customers that Proton is ‘walking the talk’. We are serious in our resolution to improve our service, our quality and most importantly, our relationship with our customers. We want them to know that our customers always come first with us," said Proton Holdings Berhad Managing Director, Dato' Haji Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir.

He said Proton is now seeing the fruition of concerted efforts and initiatives to improve operational performance and customer satisfaction.

The new Saga has been drawing large numbers of customers to Proton showrooms

Proton continues to pursue its action-oriented initiative, one example being the Proton Customer Action Team (CAT), which is an integrated team made up of representatives from manufacturing, quality, vendors, sales, after-sales, 24-hour assist and Proton i.care hotline to closely keep track on issues experienced by the new model for a period of about three months. This team works on counter-measures and immediate rectification of registered problems on newly produced units.

The CAT track record showed more than 90% of the first 1,000 km concerns were solved prior to delivery of the car to customers. CAT underscores Proton's commitment to improve the quality and performance of its models to meet the satisfaction of existing and potential consumers.

As a result of Proton's continuous improvement activities and initiatives by the CAT team, product quality has shown a marked improvement with Proton recording a positive decline in its vehicle's defects-per-unit from the introduction of the Waja in 2000 until the later model as was reflected in the recent JD Power Initial Quality Survey Study 2006/2007.

In the annual independent survey, the Savvy retained its position in the top 3 ranking of the small car segment, similarly with the Proton Wira in the entry mid-size segment, while the Proton Waja made it to the top 3 in the mid-size car segment for 2007.

The Proton i.care mobile team

In addition to these efforts, Proton Edar has recently invested in the establishment of its first in-house collision and body repair facility (known as CoSE Body Centre). This initiative will complement the Proton i.care campaign launched in August 2007 as it enhances the company's after-sales service.

A one-stop centre where collision repair, tyre services, major repair and maintenance service are located under one premise, the CoSE Body Centre will set the benchmark for 16 other similar centres nationwide which will be established in the next two years.

Proton's service customers at the ceremony were also offered membership to the Daring Club as a token of appreciation and acknowledgement for their continuous support and loyalty to Proton's products and services. To-date, the club has about 25,000 members. The loyalty membership system allows Proton to identify and reward their valuable customers and organize tailor-made customer appreciation activities throughout the year.

"These and future initiatives along these lines are our way of telling our customers we care and that we are looking out for their best interests. We want to have a long and flourishing relationship with them and we will make every effort to realize that,' said Dato’ Syed Zainal.

With over 23,000 Malaysians waiting for their new Saga, Proton is increasing production but will ensure quality is not compromised

Meanwhile, it was revealed that bookings for the New Saga had reached 23,000 units. This encouraging response has resulted in a waiting period of five to six months for the delivery of the new mode, said Dato’ Syed Zainal. During the event, car keys to the first four New Saga owners. Thanking the customers who bought the latest Proton and those who placed bookings, Dato’ Syed Zainal asked for patience while waiting for their cars. He gave assurance that all efforts are now focused on stepping up production to accelerate the delivery and meet the customer's demand while all the quality standards would be met.

"We are truly humbled by the faith shown in us and spurred to continue giving our consumers what they want. We see such market response as one of the indications that we are on the right track in our strategy to produce the right car for the right market, at the right price," he said.