According to the new Luxury Customer Experience Index survey (LCEI) from the New York-based Luxury Institute, Lexus trounced the competition as the luxury automobile brand that delivers “the best customer experience“ as rated and ranked by their own wealthy customers. Porsche came in second while Acura was a close third. Notably absent from the top four were Mercedes and BMW which have previously ranked in the top three in the Luxury Institute’s Brand Status Index surveys.

Wealthy customers rated the top eleven luxury automobile brands based on their direct individual experiences. These included (in alphabetical order): Acura, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Infiniti, Jaguar, Lexus, Lincoln, Mercedes, Porsche and Volvo.

The Luxury Institute surveyed a nationally representative valid and reliable statistical sample of more than 2,100 households with a minimum of $200,000 in gross annual income and net worth of at least $750,000 (including home equity).

“Lexus won by a wide margin, achieving a top rating of 88 vs. 83 for Porsche and 82 for Acura,” said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute. “Lexus customers rated it most worthy of a price premium by a 5-point margin above its nearest competitor. The brand also posted the highest ratings by a comfortable margin in the critical Customer Retention and Customer Referral indexes.“

Lexus also won every category of Customer Experience Drivers including brand effectiveness, and brand attitude, which included top scores in “most enthusiastic, most polite and most trustworthy representatives.” It also overwhelmed the competition, including Mercedes, on brand environment (dealerships). Acura had the lowest incidence of reported problems although its problem resolution scores were below most other competitors.

“The alarms should be going off very loudly in Germany”, said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute. “In the recent Luxury Brand Status Index (LBSI) surveys, which measure brand reputations among the wealthy, Lexus was rated number four while Mercedes and BMW rated among the top three, along with Porsche. However, in our new Luxury Customer Experience Index surveys, Mercedes and BMW do not even make the top four in customer experience. These metrics, all among America’s wealthiest consumers, indicate significant discrepancies between target market perceptions and actual customer realities for Mercedes and BMW. One thing is to talk about it in the abstract; another is to measure it precisely. Interestingly, in our brand reputation surveys, Lexus was rated by far the up-and-comer, and now it is clear that, with its run-away customer experience rating among the wealthy, Lexus has arrived.”

This new survey, called the Luxury Customer Experience Index (LCEI), creates a set of measures and indices that capture the critical drivers for Customer Experience, as rated by each brand’s own customers, and goes far beyond traditional customer satisfaction measures. The LCEI delivers a critical set of metrics based on the four “pillars” of a Customer’s Experience including: Experience Drivers, Price Worthiness, Customer Retention and Customer Referral for each brand in a category. The Experience Drivers section includes the brand’s effectiveness, brand attitude, brand environment, and the brand’s problem resolution index.

As the trusted and respected Voice of America’s Wealthy, the Luxury Institute is the pioneer in developing objective and independent customer-centric performance metrics for the luxury goods and services industry. The new Luxury Customer Experience Index survey (LCEI) complements the Luxury Institute’s reputation survey (Luxury Brand Status Index survey, or LBSI). Together, these surveys measure the differences between a brand’s reputation among the target market and the actual experiences of customers. [PRWEB]

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