Jeep betting ‘flying doctors’ will help rebuild its reputation

The new head of Jeep Australia knows the brand has a lot to do to rebuild its reputation after years of reliability and customer service. And an Aussie institution has inspired the fight back.

The man charged with turning around the fortunes of Jeep in Australia has assembled a team of “flying doctors” to return the brand to health.

In five years, Jeep sales have plummeted from 30,000 a year to just 6000 as corporate scandals, reliability problems and vocal disgruntled customers have taken their toll.

Kevin Flynn, the managing director of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — Jeep’s parent company — believes the key to recovery will be after-sales support for customers.

The “flying doctors” are technical experts who have a roving commission to tackle customer complaints and even retrain staff in regional areas to make sure problems don’t get out of hand.

New boss of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Australia, Kevin Flynn.

“As soon as anyone waves a flag, be it a customer, be it a dealer, that there is an issue — dispatch the man, get to grips, resolve the problem,” he says.

He said Jeep had made the mistake of growing rapidly without investing sufficiently in after-sales support.

“It’s all right having growing pains as long as you’re responsive,” he says.

The company has reduced the price of key parts and lengthened its warranty to five years, as well as introducing capped price servicing and roadside assistance to reassure buyers.

“That’s not groundbreaking,” Flynn says, “I think it’s just joining the party.

“The key thing for me is to make sure we’ve the technical capability and the responsiveness to customers when they need us. And to get to issues before they are big issues.”

To that end, FCA has employed former Holden board member Jo Markham as director of after-sales. Flynn says: “Jo is an engineer by trade and is really bring a systematic approach to what we’re doing.”

The new Jeep Gladiator ute is due to arrive in Australia soon.

Flynn says the pressure is on from head office to increase local sales as Australia is a major part of FCA’s strategy for selling right-hand drive vehicles.

The lack of demand for right-hand drive vehicles was the main cause of Holden’s demise but Flynn says FCA is committed to the task, despite modest global sales of roughly 30,000.

“Emphatically we are committed to right-hand drive. And the reason we’ve got so much focus on us from global is because Australia has to play a far bigger role in right-hand drive. There’s a great opportunity here.”

But those hoping for a wider variety of products from the FCA global stable — from the hairy-chested Dodge Challenger Hellcat to the zero-emission Fiat 500 EV — will be disappointed.

There are no plans to bring in a wider range of vehicles such as the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat.

Flynn says the initial focus will be on the existing products and brands, as well as the wider FCA business.

“I’ve got some halo products in my portfolio now that we probably haven’t done enough justice to,” he says.

Jeep should get a lift when its Wrangler-based Gladiator ute is launched in the middle of May. Flynn says FCA’s other struggling brands, Alfa Romeo and Fiat, are also high on the priority list.

“We are shaping a plan for those brands and undoubtedly we are committed to those brands in Australia but we have to understand the product offering, where it fits, what volume aspirations we have,” he says.

The Fiat 500 EV was a possibility but any decision would be driven by commercial considerations. “A lot of planets need to line up for it to be viable,” he says.