As is to be expected when you sell a lot of cars, the aspect of after-sales can have trouble keeping up. Such is the case with Proton, which has been experiencing issues with its after-sales, with a lack of parts for both scheduled servicing and accident repairs causing unhappiness among customers.
While acknowledging that the issue is there and needs to be fixed, the automaker says it isn’t perturbed by the level of complaints, even if it is taking steps to address the problem. “From the way you read about it on social media, it seems very bad and because of that some potential customers are hesitating to buy a Proton, but for us it really isn’t that bad,” said Proton deputy CEO Roslan Abdullah.
“If you compare the volume of our sales to the number of complaints, we can count the number of these on social media,” he said during an interview last week. He said that while the noise from complaints is apparent, the majority of customers are happy, but remain silent.
Nonetheless, the company isn’t viewing the matter lightly. “Although I say it isn’t bad, we take it seriously on finding what is the root cause, what makes these customers unhappy, and what makes customers not get the parts on time or why the car is not being repaired properly,” he stated.
The national automaker has been taking steps to rectify the problems, with the latest being weekly ‘war room’ meetings – chaired by Proton CEO Li Chunrong – to discuss facets of after-sales and how to address the shortage in parts. According to Roslan, this includes ensuring that vendors deliver the parts, and that parts from Geely are also coming on time.
Earlier this month, Proton announced that it has implemented a mandatory requirement where all dealers are required to have at least three months holding stock of 22 fast moving parts. Expanding on this, Roslan said that the company was targeting to have adequate stock in place by the end of June, with adequate being three months stock at dealerships, three months of stock at its warehouses and also a certain number of months’ stock at its vendors.
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6-9 months waiting list is not bad?
You clowns must be joking. I sold my X70 car 8 months ago
Only now I receive a call that the part has arrive lol
Lol same here sold it off due to my utter disappointment with the ‘new’ Proton.
LOL! You probably confused your Aruz with X70. Easy for P2 fanboys to make that mistake thinking their car is better than in reality.
Copy paste: ““If you compare the volume of our sales to the number of complaints, we can count the number of these on social media”
You made the right decision to dispose off the x70.If u know Ukraine is a hell hole warzone,do want to have a vacation there now? Why people are bodo enough to wait 6 months for a no spare part SUV?Just plain stupid to wait in agony for a depreciating asset.
Copy paste: “Hafriz: I’d supposed you would think I’d a lot to complain about in terms of interior rattles or whatnot. BUT UNFORTUNATELY, I have very little to report”
Wise decision!
“As is to be expected when you sell a lot of cars, the aspect of after-sales can have trouble keeping up.”
The problem is a lot of cars. Proton is selling a lots of MODELS with even more different variants (Compared to others, Proton needs to attract buyers with new variants every year and to renew public trust after screwing up the previous variant. This has been going for decade). Considering the relatively small number of cars sold per variant, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out they will face parts and logistic nightmare.
In business world, this is called a Happy Problem. And a solution incoming in just few months time so really it is not a problem at all.
In business world, this is called “Stupid planning”. This is why Proton won’t go anywhere besides faux support given by Geely.
If it isn’t bad, you wont be having this conversation and PT won’t be wasting a space for this.
They are not. Proton layan Paultan because they seek out Proton for comment and Proton professionally responded. That is true customer service. How many do you think need to bash Toyota and yet they haven’t responded on their own chronic parts shortages and long waiting time for cars?
Dear proton, pls register my complaint here for your future improvement. Booked Proton X50 Executive since October last year. Until today still haven’t received any. My SA said maybe have to wait until mid April or so and he also not sure. That means waiting time is more than six month. Really frustrated with Proton for this uncertainty.
Waiting for Spare part is Proton issue… But waiting for new car is just x50 is on high demand. Proton, SA also want to deliver the car to make profit. Nothing to blame for the latter. If no deal, can always get back full refund.
I’ve waited for 6 months for Honda City. Chipstead shortage is a global issue unfortunately
If it is not bad, LCR don’t need many many meetings or war cry. Enough with storekeepers meeting.
I don’t understand your logic of comparing genuine customer complaints vs customer who are happy – obviously customer who are happy did not face any spare part issue which did not affect them in any way.
As a true story that the X50 has a sensor malfunction and the service center ordered the parts since Oct 2021. Then the ball was passed between Service Centre and Proton Customer Service until it was replaced on Feb 2022. Even the Service Centre have the audacity to force you to stop by in 2 weeks time or they will send the parts back to Proton as it is a hot item!!! Brilliant job Proton going back to your roots as usual.
Just Glad J.D Power survey is not gonna be giving you guys any customer satisfactory index high score anytime soon.
What difference does it make, JD Power have been giving Proton the short stick anyway. But even so, JD Power has lost all credibility by pulling out when their clientele no longer trust their business anymore. That puts in doubt their poor views on Proton, so unless a truly independent surveyor does a good job, any results will be biased.
If you look back at the disappearance of car brands in Malaysia.. most of them – possibly all were because of bad after sales service and parts availability.
What happened to Fiat? Alfa Romeo? Opel? Saab? And to some extent – Suzuki and Chevrolet.
Why Proton can’t spread its wings wide into thailand and indonesia? It sold 100k cars recently.. but it was more or less 70k 8 years back. Never forget proton did achieve 200k marks some 20 years ago (hence the reason it built a 2nd plant in tg malim). Proton is failing miserably and refused to accept and to face with facts.
Umw toyota fell to its knees and Honda Malaysia swept awards for top sales for years but what is happening now?
Part of it is level of service quality and secondly parts support and availability. Just think on this because Proton service is a big joke. Really.
Sorry, but Proton sales have been going from strength to strength despite Covid, despite lockdowns, despite economic pressure on rakyat. It was one of the very very few brands to make headway when others falter last year, all that and you claim ‘Proton is failing miserably’? I wonder where your benchmark from, the sky perhaps?
Kinda agree it’s just a few serious complaints VS the sales number. But then, since it’s only a few, why did it get this far until the top management has to step up to save the Proton Image? Or it could be your incapable after-sales team… something more important to fix besides the spare parts inventory.
Take it seriously? How? What steps have you guys taken to get customer feedback?
You have that dumb and somewhat buggy app for scheduling service appointments. Can’t the same app let you rate post-service experience with some questionaire to get real feedback on whether the SCs are up to expectations?
Or at least have a customer feedback page that allows users to put in their vehicle and personal particulars with the date and time of SC visit, with questionaire for users to complain or praise the SC experience accordingly?
You guys already know that Proton after sales service sucks big time, and yet absolutely zero efforts have been made towards gaining customer satisfaction feedback in almost 40 years of existence.
Even Shopee and Lazada will send out random customer satisfaction survey emails from time to time to gather feedback and improve their services. Proton? Never… And never will.
To be fair, Proton does have a customer feedback via Google form. Scan the QR code at SC or SC will whatsapp you the link after schedule service.
However, you’re not sure if it is an exercise in futility or does Proton actually read every single feedback they received. Until today that is. At least now I know that my feedback has been read & actions are now being taken to rectify the situation. Better late than never.
Almost 4 years in the market but spare part still in progress to settle the lack of parts? LOL! Bravo potong.
Not much issue if Proton assume their affordable car customer owns 5 cars and can wait half year for repair. They not aware mostly rely on their only proton car to go to work everyday because they can afford only 1 car, the affordable brand.
As one of the silently majority, let me say “Pride comes before the fall”.
Overall am satisfied with the car & have tolerated the out of stock incidents but how would you feel if 1 year later, the same item is still not in stock despite coming for 3 schedule services already (@ 40k 50k & 60k schedule services).
Should a warranty claim comes about later, Proton can claim that the schedule item was not replaced on time and have the right to reject warranty claim. So the onus is on owner to prove that item was not in stock & appeal against the rejection.
Let me remind Proton, out of 10 customers you hear about, 3 be happy (silent majority) but 7 be complaining. Although these 7 represent the minority of overall customers, it is these vocal unhappy 7 that will give (negative) perception on the brand. Brand reputation takes a long time to build but can easily be ruined in a short time.
I’ve complain regarding proton after sales service 1.5 month ago, they never bother to reply. So much of after sales problem. Never buy proton
Hahaha … we know very well this is just marketing talks to fool more new customers. The existing customers know very well how bad it really is.
But you can only extend the lie so far … it wont work forever. If its like Proton say, 3 months stock from April onwards, it shouldnt have any backlog issues anymore by July or so??
This is how proton is trying to tell you that we have more happy customers than unhappy customers so we are doing well. Clearly disregarding the unhappy customers cause it seems that in their books, the unhappy customers doesnt matter to them cause all they care about are the happy customers. For the same price i’d suggest you consider other car brands.
“isn’t bad..”…how about holding your salary until the part arrive Mr CEO?
Proton now is sombong.
Just closed down, too many problems unsolved from time to time and keep giving unacceptable reasons, Proton is unfit for doing business.
fuh lega tak beli x50
Bravo…. downplay the customer. That should get you far.
Same ol’ same ol….
Maybe the car parts still comes within owner lifetime
still consider not long lah
/s
This CEO will be fired by LCR anytime soon. This is the mentality of thinking that will ruin Proton’s image. One customer’s complaint is enough to ruin a good image because he is the only must pay the installment every month for the car he cannot use due to part shortages.
At least you guys listen more to criticism and complaints from customers, you guys at Proton have to be more active than before. If you can, it’s better for you to have a division that also sees and collects complaints from social media…
It’s weird though, hopefully you guys understand better than i am…
Got my CBU X70 in 2019, till this very day the complaint i filed in never got claimed and that was done in late 2019. Here we are in 2022 and still the same B.S. Even the service centre that registered that complaint has gone through several revamps. You guys are lucky that Geely’s built better cars than what would come out from your own yard, else you probably won’t even see the path to your office with the amount of broken down cars blocking the entire building of the SC.
I am legit the owner of x50. Bought it October 2021 and sadly got defect on the windows. I filed a complain to proton service centre. Now it is already May 2022, I’ve been waiting for my parts to be replaced ever since. I dont know how long will this wait lasted. But i will update it once i got it. Already got a bad feeling it will last even longer. I feel regret to ever trust proton words but i cant do anything about it anymore. Am i commenting to bring proton down. No. Sadly they did bring my expectations down. Never ever said we got it from social media when we are the one who feel down enough to give them our trust. They themselves broke their promises on the get go.
Proton now should realise that they are now under Geely and rely on Geely for the new model and global engine. But they still have an old habit of being ignorant .when their SUV model skyrocket, they think they are on par with other manufacturers in terms of sales or service. Jangan mendongak ke langit.
I own x50. Still haven’t got any problem but it made me uneasy. The thought that if I break something in the future, I have to wait for a long time for parts but still have to pay the installments.
Disappointed that Proton can also ran out of stock for gear box oil.
Getting parts for a Proton is a complete nightmare.
Last Tuesday (1st Aug) I sent my car to Proton service center (Proton Lesydear Automobile 3S Bandar Kinrara) for regular service. Upon completion, the technician told me that the car battery is only operating at 5% charge and needed replacement immediately. However, he couldn’t replace the battery for me because it is out of stock. He jump started the car for me and asked me to go nearby workshop to change the battery. I was advised not to stop the car as I might not be able to crank start the car again. Imagine my car could become dead while driving, the technician is literally asking me to risk my life to drive on the road!
I was really disappointed with the services from this Proton 3s service centre. As 3s service centre (sales, service and spare parts), not only they failed to provide spares replacement, they are releasing vehicle that might be risking life of their customers. Will they be held responsible if car accident happens due to sudden halt caused by the dead battery?
I really felt that the way Proton handled my case was unprofessional and the requirements to qualify as 3s center need to further be looked over.