News about Mazda’s leaked video communiqué to its dealers and the subsequent outcry among RX-8 owners reached all the way to the desks of Automotive News editors who have written a follow up story. They even mention our own little blog by name in the piece: “The story took on a life of its own on the RX-8 owner site and on autoblog.com, an auto enthusiast site… Autoblog.com asked the question: ‘Why would RX-8 owners be surveyed if those survey results were not a factor for the dealer in the end? And more importantly, what incentive would dealers have to give RX-8 owners good customer service if these surveys weren’t being counted?'”
Though the piece is currently for subscribers only, we can tell you that after a lengthy play-by-play recap the author tells us Mazda is looking for a new way to communicate with its dealers that’s more secure. Might we suggest carrier pigeon, as no transmission in our digital era seems 100% secure anymore.
Automotive News also dug a little deeper and discovered that despite this recent PR shiner, the RX-8 ironically achieved the highest customer satisfaction scores of any Mazda in a recent J.D. Power & Associates study. For its part, Mazda will review whether or not it will even go ahead with its original plan to not include RX-8 owner survey numbers in dealer scores.
[Source: Automotive News – sub required]