Vehicle quality 

Fiat Group’s interaction with customers includes extensive research to gain an understanding of market needs and desires, and to ensure the company delivers vehicles that exceed consumers’ quality expectations. As part of the alliance between Fiat¹ and Chrysler Group, the company is continuing to invest in quality improvements and is creating a stronger, worldwide quality organization. Across the Group, a dedicated cross-functional team is working on a coordinated strategy. A number of global quality initiatives are being evaluated, including the development of new common standards and methods based on competitive benchmarks.

Providing high-quality vehicles is a key driver of the Group’s product strategy, and many tools are used to improve a vehicle’s performance quality, such as surveys and clinics that collect and prioritize customer desires, assessments of competitive vehicles, vehicle teardowns and third-party data. The Quality team benchmarks approximately 320 physical characteristics of best-in-class vehicles. Criteria such as acceleration, braking, handling, seat comfort, storage space, fuel economy and visibility are measured so that Group products can be designed to compete with the best.

In addition, Fiat Group uses an overall measurement of customer satisfaction called the Customer Promoter Score (CPS). CPS is an internal monthly tracking system that measures customers’ willingness to recommend their vehicle to a friend or family member. Customers are surveyed at potentially seven points during the first five years of ownership through a combination of time-triggered and event-triggered transactions.

The results of the Group’s quality efforts have been significant: in 2011, the Group reduced the rate of repair in the first 90 days of ownership by 10% to 20%, depending on the model.
Best-in-class standards are also adopted at the manufacturing phase. In fact, all Group manufacturing plants have adopted a Quality Management System Certification compliant with ISO 9001:2008. In addition, Fiat Powertrain plants in Europe are also ISO / TS 16949:2009 certified.