2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid

After owning six Camry sedans over the last two decades, Glenn is suddenly getting interested in the new Honda Accord coming out this autumn, and he's not alone. While Toyota has some of the highest loyalty rates in the U.S. auto market, according to industry statistics, data also reveal a growing frustration with the automaker's sales and service process, a trend that could lead to a loss of the long-time Toyota customers the company needs to maintain the fast-paced growth it's experiencing in the U.S. market.

As a result, Toyota is readying an expansive plan to dramatically improve the entire "experience" of buying, owning and maintaining one of the company's products, TheCarConnection.com has learned.

"It's a movement, not a program," explained Jack Hollis, the corporate manager with Toyota's U.S. sales subsidiary who was put in charge of developing EM2, or Everything Matters Exponentially. "The company is trying to address the entire sales and service experience (because) if we really want to keep growing, we have to do it by increasing customer loyalty."

The program or, if you prefer, movement, comes at a critical time. Toyota is undergoing phenomenal growth all over the world, but no market is more important than the affluent U.S., where the company is now routinely nudging ahead of Detroit's number two maker, Ford.

But even as the sales number climb, there are problems that could backfire on the company, starting with a variety of well-publicized recalls that resulted in more cars being called back for service last year than Toyota sold in the States. And another recall, this time of the important, new Tundra pickup, is looming, due to a defective V-8. Tellingly, the automaker tumbled in the latest J.D. Power Initial Quality Survey, released earlier this month, slipping behind Honda, now the mainstream brand with the lowest level of "problems" right out of the plant.

Perhaps more significant, Toyota has slipped not only in these "things-gone-wrong" surveys, but also in studies measuring "things-gone-right," the things a maker can do to surprise and delight a customer. In the latest Vehicle Satisfaction Awards, from the California research firm, AutoPacific Inc., which measures things both wrong and right, didn't even measure up to industry average, falling behind not only TGW leaders like Honda and Cadillac, but brands such as Volkswagen, Land Rover and Hummer, which have traditionally suffered from weak quality.

Source: thecarconnection.com