The Chery on the Top

Chery South Africa received the highest accolade from its dealer network at last night’s NADA DSI Awards Ceremony.

The National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA), the official representative body for franchised automotive dealers, hosts its Dealer Satisfaction Index (DSI) awards every year. It represents the culmination of 12 months of polls that measure a dealer’s satisfaction with its vehicle brand.

To best understand the DSI survey, it is important to remember that dealers are predominantly independent businesses that has a contractual agreement with a vehicle brand to sell and service their vehicles.

“Our dealers are our ‘face’ to the customer,” says Jay Jay Botes, National Sales Manager of Chery South Africa.

“While we design and build the vehicles, they are responsible for selling them and for keeping our customers happy. As such, dealers are a very, very important part of our business and we try to offer the best possible service to them.”

As part of the DSI survey, NADA polls dealers on their level of satisfaction with different parts of their relationship with vehicle brands. For instance, a vehicle brand may have plenty of new vehicles to ship to dealers, but they could fall flat when it comes time to supply dealers with the necessary parts and components needed to service and repair these vehicles.

In another instance, a dealer may be required to invest heavily in their showroom and service equipment, but struggle to get vehicle stock from a brand, making it impossible for them to trade profitably.

At the 2022/23 NADA DSI Awards, Chery received a Gold Award for its support of its dealer network. This is one of the highest accolades possible and it symbolizes both a healthy relationship and solid support from Chery South Africa.

Chery achieved an overall score of 80%, 0.9% higher than before, to receive the Gold Award. It is the latest in a long series of awards and accolades for Chery.

Since entering the market late in 2021, Chery has been recognised as a Top 10 vehicle brand and its Tiggo 4 Pro regularly rank as one of the ten best-selling vehicles in the country.

At this year’s SA Car of the Year Awards, the Tiggo 8 Pro was voted the People’s Car of the Year and internationally Chery South Africa has been recognised for its rapid growth and high levels of customer satisfaction within the larger Chery Group.

To maintain this strong relationship, Chery has recently opened a new, larger parts warehouse in Gauteng. This warehouse delivers parts and components to every Chery dealer, every day.

Chery has also expanded on its service offering with the addition of a host of support services to Chery owners, including roadside support, scratch and dent protection and even a drive me home facility.

“All this helps dealers to offer the best possible value for money for each customer and it creates a sense of trust in the Chery brand,” says Botes.