Advice for New Car Buyers: J.D. Power Rankings Are NOT What They Seem to Be

I grew up in rural middle Tennessee, literally believing that everything I saw on television, every "customer satisfaction rating" recommendation, every testimonial was true. I know, it speaks VOLUMES about the real-life education of a rural educational system and the values our community, but the simple truth is this: we were non-complex, hard-working, law abiding (for the most part; I must admit, here, though, that we had no problem with neighbors who were known to "run moonshine" just making and distributing a few jars of the clear liquid often known as the nectar of our southern hills--why, what's the problem with cooking up a little corn somewhere way out in the woods?) tax-paying, citizens. We stood and faced the American Flag and said the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school, right after The Lord's Prayer, and we'd better have our eyes closed during the first and our hands on our hearts for the latter, or we'd risk receiving a whack or two on our legs. It was the solemn duty of the school janitor, Mr. Spencer, and two upper class students to raise and lower the American flag each day at our little rural school, and during good weather, we could hear the clang-clang of the ropes hitting the flagpole as Old Glory waved in the breeze.

I know, I am a bit tangential, but you need to understand the naivety with which I arrived at my employ at the Japanese light duty truck manufacturing company which located just outside of Nashville, Tennessee, in about 1981. (And while I think it best not to mention it by name, I also find it interesting to note that they recently relocated the national headquarters from California to Nashville, as well.)

So let me tell you how I came to work at the Japanese Auto Manufacturer. I had worked with an estate planning and tax attorney (Joe M. Goodman) for several years. During that time, Joe and another attorney left one firm and formed a new law office, with each attorney taking his secretary from the old firm with him to work at the new one. So, Kathy Z. and I basically set up the office, worked with designers, developed accounts payable and receivable, established relationships with vendors of all sorts, etc., etc., and, between the two of us, split the duties of law office administrative work. After working with Joe for a little over 4 years, my daughter, then 22 months old, was hospitalized and had to have spine surgery for a tethered spinal cord. Now, here's the scoop: my daddy died a few months before we found out about my daughter's spine problems; once she was diagnosed with spine problems, my husband (of 7 years) couldn't handle it, and we split up; my daughter spent 5 months in and out of Vanderbilt Hospital, during which time I was sleeping on the floor of the hospital at night, working as I could during the day, doing my best to keep the lights on and take care of my daughter's medical crisis. I was paid ONLY for hours I worked and any accumulated vacation time I had. In April, 1982, she had a spinal laminectomy done and I was told she'd never walk. Less than two weeks later, I returned to work (on a Monday), with the admonition from her neurosurgeon to watch for a fever, it could mean she was getting a wound infection and could get encephilitis and could become mentally retarded from that kind of infection. Naturally, as my luck would have it, the night of my first day back at work after her surgery, she spiked a fever and had to be rushed back to the hospital, meaning that I missed yet another day of work (Tuesday). When I returned to work that Wednesday morning, my boss wouldn't even speak to me. He left me work to do bu said not a word. At 4 o'clock that afternoon, he called me into his office then sent the other secretaries home. By the time my 4 o'clock meeting with him was over, he had fired me. He called it a "personality conflict." The bottom line was that he had fired me because we were a small law firm and my having a handicapped child made the entire firm's health insurance rates increase. After working with Joe Goodman for 4 years, he fired me because I had a handicapped child. By the time my 4 o'clock meeting with him was over, not only did I have no job, but my health insurance was about to be non-existent (prior to COBRA), I had no way to support my spine-damaged child, no spouse who would support his child, and no idea of what I would do. I had lost my father, my husband, faced my child's medical crisis alone, and lost my job---wham! wham! wham! wham! It was not pretty, and my life was very very difficult.

Eventually, I went to a temporary agency; they sent me to the Japanese Auto Manufacturer, and after one week's assigment, the Japanese Auto Manufacturer wanted to hire me as a full-time employee. So.... when they're trying to hire me, lots of promises are made. The future of the Japanese Auto Manufacturer was to be bright and I would be a star. But the one thing they said that got my attention is that my health insurance would start the same day my employment began.

After working at the Japanese Auto Manufacturer for several years, I ended up in the test lab and then in the Quality Department, coordinating the launch activities for new model vehicles. It was during all this that I saw how the J.D. Power Survey rankings are achieved.

We were making light duty pickup trucks. And we worked hard to make the very best light duty pickup trucks on the market. But no matter how hard we worked, no matter what we did, no matter how hard our vendors worked to improve their components, we simply didn't move up in the rankings. Consistently low. Not even close to Number 1 in Customer Satisfaction. We had Quality Month, and we turned in Quality Tips; we had Quality Improvement contests, and a Quality poster contest. We did Quality Improvement videos on the inter-company news network, we wore shirts that reminded us that Quality was our highest priority. We drank out of plastic cups that had Quality slogans all over them. But we still didn't make any gains in the J.D. Power Customer Satisfaction Survey.

Until one day, someone had the bright idea to contact J.D. Power and ask them how we could improve our rankings in their survey. And... interestingly enough, the J.D. Power folks came out and did presentations, made suggestions, and had more than one big dinner on the Japanese Yen. There was a big contract, hundreds of thousands of dollars, in fact, with the J.D. Power Company, whereby they sent memos and made more suggestions. Were any of these suggestions new? Not really, no. Did the suggestions make a big change in the way we assembled a vehicle? No, no, they didn't. But.... miracle of all miracles, it took MERE MONTHS and we were suddenly Number 1 on the J.D. Power survey for... oh, new truck or something. And as the years passed, the more contracts we entered with J.D. Power & Company on our additional vehicle lines, the higher our various vehicles ranked on their customer satisfaction surveys. In other words, the more J.D. Power & Company was paid by that company, the higher the rankings of the company's vehicles. Not surprising, I don't reckon, when you consider that many folks, like my own self, grew up in rural America, actually believing what we hear on television and reach in newspapers. And when you consider that vehicle buyers often cite satisfaction surveys as their reason for purchase decisions, why, it make GREAT economic sense for the company to PAY to rank higher.

Now, I grew up in Pegram, Tennessee, a rural, middle Tennessee township of about 400 people (at that time), and I am not the sharpest tool in the shed (neither am I as dull as a garden hoe). But I don't think it takes an Einstein to figure out that every car company wants to rank high in customer satisfaction so that every potential buyer will consider their vehicle.

So my advice to new vehicle buyers is this: WATCH whose survey you're tracking. You may simply be reading a paid commentary.