My expectation would be that if a dealership did not have any part associated with any new car they sold within the last 7 years available on their shelf, that they would be able to procure it from a local distributor within 24 hours, with few exceptions. It is sad that bringing service up to what will probably amount to less than this level is considered noteworthy by GM’s PR department.

GM is seriously late to the party and, having arrived late, is still underperforming Toyota’s parts network.

Toyota doesn’t trumpet its legendary rapid replenishment to its dealer network…Toyota owners (when they need a part replaced, which is seldom) simply benefit from it.

GM’s parts program is a day late and a dollar short. Look in the phone book – you’ll find at lease 5 national auto part companies as well as a number of franchise parts dealers. These guys exist and do well due to GM’s parts practices. GM parts are primarily used for under-warranty replacement. GM’s confidence in their parts is so low that their new car warranty is the worst in the automobile industry. Keeping parts in stock is a good idea as I recently had a vehicle with less than 10,000 miles on it stay out of service for 6 days waiting on a GM part. This experience convinced me that I had made a major mistake buying GM and my future decisions will not include GM products. This is a company that has managed itself for every reason EXCEPT customer satisfaction. In my opinion they don’t deserve to survive and won’t in a real competitive environment.

I think I understand your dismay, Ian. It is certainly disappointing to me to see such a large and prominent organization seem to be so weak operationally. Note, however, that Zenith’s research data says that 92% of retail organizations have a customer service rating of 70% or worse and have products or services that fit their market at a rating of 70% or worse. We are confronting, again, the fact that American retail businesses operate at a very low level and do not know it. This is a huge challenge for us as advisors, and we have not, in my view, really addressed this. Why are we — consultants and advisors — not making more of a difference? What could we do to make more of a difference? (What about a discussion topic somewhere just on this point?) There are dozens of approaches that a business could take in making improvement: improve the organizational efficiency, improve the market share, improve the margins, improve staff retention. An organization can improve staff retention but weaken margins, or… Read more »

Let me understand this…GM was able to supply parts only 67% of the time so their breakthrough thinking that produced a “new” approach is to improve that. According to a June/05 report by Gallup only 20% of customers are “fully engaged” with their vendors which means that loyalty is virtually non-existent at the best of times. A company that finally gets the idea that you have to be better than 67% has a very long and steep mountain to climb.

If GM starts an ad campaign bragging that their dealers have parts, they’re wasting their money. It would be embarrassing to advertise what people already expect. And why remind people that GM vehicles are less reliable than some other brands?