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CSS 2019: a barometer to better understand our customers’ expectations

In October 2019, we carried out the 4th customer satisfaction survey, which is a barometric study we perform every 3 years. This new edition highlighted areas for progress and plans of action to be taken to increase customer satisfaction.

We conducted this survey with a representative panel of our customers, either in terms of geographic distribution or turnover over the past 3 years, including our key customers within each subsidiary. All in all, we received the very good response rate of 45%. 62% of respondents come from the Europe zone, 17% from the Asia-Pacific zone and 21% from the Americas zone, with a clear increase in the number of participants in the North America and the Asia zones.

Positive results

The survey shows that we have a strong momentum for progress. In fact, we obtained an overall satisfaction score of 7.85 out of 10 (vs 7.69 in 2016), which has increased steadily since the first round carried out in 2010. There is a marked increase in the proportion of “very satisfied” customers: +8.4 points compared to 2016, which is mainly explained by the conversion of customers said to be “satisfied” to “very satisfied”. We have strengthened their loyalty with the quality of our products, teams and solutions.

However, this marked improvement should be put into perspective since our competitors have also progressed overall.

The survey focused on four topics:

  • Haulotte’s image: it is most often associated with “a manufacturer with whom we can work with confidence/transparency, providing products/services adapted to needs; manufacturer of quality machines”.
  • The business relationship: The attention to/understanding of needs, the frequency/regularity of contact and the depth of the range of products offered are quite good.
  • Haulotte’s products: Satisfaction is very high in terms of compliance with the order, the documents submitted and the quality of the machines received, but there are dissatisfactions in terms of delivery times and the advice or explanations provided during delivery. On the other hand, no less than 55% of customers think that both the quality of Haulotte machines and their reliability have improved in the last 3 years. A very clear improvement should be noted on the quality of the machines and their reliability: more than 55% of customers have emphasized this.
  • Technical support: during the survey, favorable economic conditions created strong pressure on the service: our customers’ machines were constantly in operation and the demand on the service was greater. The technical expertise and the quality of information are deemed satisfactory, the area for improvement identified being, above all, the ease and speed of intervention.

Based on these results, the priorities for action to improve customer satisfaction are essentially service-oriented:

  • Technical assistance: improve the ease/speed of access and technical expertise.
  • Technical intervention: optimize the quality of technical interventions.
  • Machine delivery: consolidate the advice and explanations provided when the machine is delivered, and adhere to delivery dates.

Further reading