Engaging Customers

Maintaining good relationships with our customers is one of our most important activities. We provide a variety of means for customers to reach us, including mail, email and toll-free phone. We reach out to customers and potential customers through focus groups and other market research, and we track customer satisfaction.

We also gather online, consumer-generated content to learn what consumers are saying about both our company and the industry in general. Increasingly, customers are using these electronic media – including websites, discussion groups, blogs and social networks – to research, discuss and problem-solve topics related to their current vehicles and those they are interested in purchasing. In recent years, we have been participating more actively in this social media arena, monitoring consumer-generated content found online. Summary reports are compiled based on what we find and gather online, to convey what consumers are saying about our company and our products. These reports are shared throughout the company – from brand managers and product development engineers all the way up to senior-level management.

In addition to listening to what customers are saying online, we are also increasingly sharing information and engaging in discussions through social media. Social media allows for more two-way engagement with customers, so we can both listen to and understand our customers’ wants and needs, and build their awareness of our company and products. For more information on how we are using social media to engage with customers please see the Building Customer Awareness section. For more on our social media guidelines for employees, please see the Governance section of this report.