Automotive News - April 14, 2008 - (Page 26)

26 • APRIL 14, 2008 BETTS Chrysler’s quality chief faces tall order continued from Page 4 Betts’ odyssey started with a phone call from an official at Cerberus Capital Management last July, shortly after DaimlerChrysler AG announced that the New York private equity firm was the winning bidder for Chrysler. Doug Betts Vice president and chief customer officer, Chrysler, Oct. 2007 Previous experience Nissan Americas: Senior vice president of total customer satisfaction April 2006 Vice president of manufacturing quality, Sept. 2004 Toyota Motor Manufacturing of Indiana: General manager of quality, 1997 Michelin Tire Corp.: Various jobs, 1987-95 General Motors: Quality engineer/supervisor, Buick City Complex, 1986 Education Bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, Georgia Tech, 1986 effect on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and somebody needs to oversee that plan. “He said: ‘You’re right!’ ” Betts didn’t want to leave Nissan. He and his family were happy in on the assembly line; at parts factories, retail lots and dealer service bays; and on industry score cards. He has moved quickly, forming 18 customer satisfaction teams that started work in February and involve nearly 250 people. “He’s got a tough challenge ahead of him,” said Neal Oddes, director of product research at J.D. Power and Associates. “He’s got to get the new products off to a good start and get the old products back to where they were. It’s a very important task.” ‘You’re right!’ The Cerberus executive offered Betts a job. Betts declined. But the executive persisted. In August, Betts went to Atlanta to talk with newly anointed Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli. What ensued was a three-hour conversation in which Nardelli picked Betts’ brain about quality issues. “I told him my view, which is that the way quality needs to be managed is similar to the way a CFO manages money in a company,” Betts says. “Everybody in the company has an Nashville. Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn had given Betts wide-ranging authority to build a quality system within Nissan. But Nardelli was persistent. “He eventually convinced me to give it a try,” says Betts. “He got it. He understands how complicated quality can be.” BlackBerries buzzing One other factor tipped Betts’ decision to move to Chrysler. He was sitting in a Nissan meeting one afternoon when the participants’ BlackBerries all started going off at the same time. One of the executives blurted out an expletive. The BlackBerries were buzzing because Jim Press had just jumped ship at Toyota to join Chrysler. “I decided it might be a good idea to go there if he went,” says Betts. Press, Chrysler co-president, is now Betts’ boss. Both spent time at Toyota, where Betts worked at the Princeton, Ind., truck plant. Earlier in his career, Betts was a quality manager at Michelin North America Inc., where he worked for Ghosn. What caught the attention of Cerberus and Chrysler were the dramatic improvements in quality Betts made in vehicles manufactured at Nissan’s Canton, Miss., factory. After Nissan experienced problems, Ghosn put Betts in charge of finding a solution. Betts formed 13 strike teams covering areas such as electronics, brakes, handling, suspension, interiors, squeaks and rattles and other issues. The teams aggressively set about working on areas where Nissan fell short in customer satisfaction surveys or had been hit with warranty claims. Nissan’s quality ratings soared. The Quest minivan was the most improved vehicle in the industry from 2004 to 2005. That got Betts promoted to another job: Nissan global chief of customer satisfaction. A CUDL conversation with the Finance Director (and life-long employee) of Gunn Honda, San Antonio, Texas. TIM RIVERS ON THE SPGT: AT A GLANCE: Rivers — who’s been Gunn’s moneyman for the last 20 years — talks about getting in the car business before he got into his teens. The family-owned dealership now has seven stores with nine different automobile brands. Rivers never loses site of the family aspect either — because when he’s not crunching numbers, he’s busy raising twin daughters. ON THE SPOT: What are annual vehicle sales for Gunn Honda? RIVERS: We hit $133 million in revenue last year and set an all-time record for the company. ON THE SPOT: How many cars is that? RIVERS: We sold 5,750 cars last year, roughly 480 cars a month. ON THE SPOT: If you were to share your own “tricks of the trade,” what would that entail? RIVERS: People buy cars when there’s activity on the lot. So, in order to stimulate activity, you must be aggressive with your pricing. ON THE SPOT: How many of your loans are through CUDL? RIVERS: About 40 percent of our business goes through CUDL. ON THE SPOT: And how long have you used CUDL? RIVERS: I’d to say it has probably been a year and a half, somewhere in that ballpark. ON THE SPOT: What does it mean to you if I said CUDL generated $12 billion in auto loans last year? RIVERS: If someone is doing $12 billion, they’re not going out of business tomorrow. They must be doing something right. ON THE SPOT: Do any of the other lending platforms, such as DealerTrack®, provide your dealership with exposure and advertising opportunities like AutoSMART? RIVERS: No. Only CUDL provides that kind of exposure and opportunity for us. G Professor of quality Betts, a soft-spoken man with dark hair and a droll wit, got his first autorelated customer satisfaction job at the tender age of 14, when he worked at Washburn Chevron, a full-service gas station in Albany, Ga. The owner’s entire business was “regular customers who were paying 20 cents more per gallon,” Betts recalls. “He built his business on relationships with those customers.” Traditionally, the industry has approached quality in a reactive way, fixing defects after they’ve appeared. Betts likes to say: “A defect is like a dead body. We’re at the crime scene, but we’re too late.” So it’s important to Betts to find the root cause of a problem. That’s why all his quality teams have people from manufacturing, procurement, product development and product quality areas of Chrysler sitting in on the meetings. Betts also listens in on complaint calls to Chrysler’s customer call center. “I’m looking at a way to get the emotion of those calls,” he says. Taking the information he hears from customers and what his quality teams are gathering, Betts hopes he can help transform Chrysler in the eyes of consumers. “We want the next batch of cars we launch to be winning competitions.” c Lindsay Chappell contributed to this report “With CUDL, we simply fax the contract and we get payment the next day.” Log onto www.CUDL.com/tim to read the entire interview. Informative. Influential. Inspirational. It’s another On the Spot interview brought to you by 877.744.2334 x2334 www.cudl.com FAST, FRIENDLY CREDIT UNION FINANCING http://www.cudl.com/tim http://www.cudl.com http://www.cudl.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Automotive News - April 14, 2008

Dealership jobs hit 8-year low GM is the wild card in axle war Service contracts: Hard-sell tactics plague dealers, customers TV auto ads shift to online, mobile venues At seminar, marketing execs to discuss new ways to reach customers Better get to know the Nano — it's set to change the world Veteran Detroit 3 dealer: 'The future is quite bleak' Poll: Dealers scrounge for cuts Locals closer to GM strike Scion xB price rises $100 Valeo CEO: No breakup Tata Nano changes low-cost development Hyundai tailors TV, Web ads for Hispanics Study: Ads focused on vehicle qualities won on Oscar night Post-Celine, Chrysler ad guru seeks right note Chrysler's quest for quality lured Nissan exec Betts Search starts for in-vehicle alcohol detectors After S. Calif. success, Honda may fund ad groups Computer images gain ground in TV ads Web TV offers automakers new ad, sales options BMW: X6 will bring brand new buyers Diana T. Kurylko Chrysler fields 'dream' ads Nissan seeks dealerships for trucks Honda will export Alabama-built Pilots to Russia Toyota, Subaru work on 'affordable' sports car Cadillac's ad agency savors the sweet life Some stores may not sell Chrysler hybrids GM hybrids get off to a slow start in first quarter Lexus adds a personal touch to pamper owners, prospects What they're buying — and what they're not The age of fuel innovation is here Approaches to r&d vary Nano brings credibility to Indian engineering Honda must revisit online dealer sales of service pacts Chrysler got it right Mandates, markets and buyer demand For Detroit, some things never change Buick: As Chicago goes, so goes the nation Auto industry has lost a good man Accentuate the positive Ex-Porsche CEO: Cayenne spiced up sales Green programs shape battle for engineering grads Tata rewards suppliers with ties to India Bill aims to set minimum sound levels for vehicles Industry lobbyists step up emissions fight Seeking wider market, Nissan equips sports car for snow New chief of SAE has D.C. skills China and GM's answer to Nano — sort of $2,500 car is Ratan Tata's personal quest NADA offers training in risky credit Donna Harris Deal's goal: Widen appeal of dent-repair coverage Title committee created Vehicle loan delinquencies rise from 2007 Suppliers to the 2009 Tata Nano Odd China combo: Fuel sippers, SUVs Pontiac Vibe: A sporty hauler with Toyota touches Dealers J.D. Power III named tracking company partner Toyota will buy back rusted Tacomas 100,000 Flex sales a year? Farley: 'Absolutely' Ford wants word-of-mouth campaign Small suppliers feel the pain of axle strike Plastech tries to sell 2 units TRW plant will build Ford gears Toyota plans 2nd India plant Dodge launch goes digital Toyota, GM recall 660,000 vehicles for window flaws Lear announces white-collar layoffs March output drops 23.6% New Ford ads tout quality improvements Tata dealers must be handy with a wrench Can the Greens slow down the autobahn? Racy scandal for race exec Echoes from the grave: Olds still has cachet The Final Say

Automotive News - April 14, 2008

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