In a bid to increase customer satisfaction, BYD Australia believes it can offer the best aftersales care in-house at its dealerships.
BYD will no longer direct customers to mycar Tyre & Auto service centres for aftersales support, instead now sending them to dealerships after building its network and taking full control from third-party distributor EVDirect.
The tie-up between BYD and mycar Tyre & Auto was born in late 2021 from the need to service customer vehicles before having much of a dealer footprint.
However, over the last three years and with the launch of models like the Dolphin, Seal, and Sealion 7, the BYD network has expanded to nearly 90 dealerships – most of which have service facilities – ending the need for customers to conduct scheduled maintenance at one of the 275-odd mycar Tyre & Auto outlets.
When asked by Drive if the partnership was officially over, BYD Australia boss Stephen Collins said customers can still go to mycar Tyre & Auto outlets (formerly known as Kmart Tyre and Auto), but the preference would be for the brand to conduct maintenance in-house.
“It [the partnership with mycar Tyre & Auto] is [over] from our perspective,” Collins said.
“But of course, it is within [everyone’s] right to have independent service, but every dealership we’re opening has full-service capability.
“We’ve struggled a bit on that front [aftersales customer satisfaction], I think just with the enormous, unprecedented growth that we’ve had, but we’re catching up, and that will improve as we go into next year.”
A key point of criticism of initial BYD ownership has been aftersales support, with early adopters of the Atto 3 told to service vehicles at a mycar Tyre & Auto outlet.
But, according to Collins, customer care is an area BYD is addressing in a major way.
“We’ve got a huge focus on aftersales, and I think we all know brands in the past that maybe haven’t done so well in that area how it hurts,” Collins said.
“For me, every dealership we’re opening now has full-service bays, technicians, we’re reducing the service wait times when booking in, we’ve investing in parts, so I think we still have a way to go to be honest, but we get – and I get given my history – that you’ve got to get that right.
“Because it builds trust, builds loyalty, creates retention – all the things people talk about.
“I think it’s improving, but we’ve still got a long way to go.”
However, BYD will stick to its current six-year/150,000km warranty, according to Collins, and does not see the need to immediately jump to a seven- or 10-year assurance period offered by rivals like Mitsubishi and MG.
“It’s not on our immediate radar, but we’re always looking at it and we need to be competitive,” Collins said.
Tung Nguyen has been in the automotive journalism industry for over a decade, cutting his teeth at various publications before finding himself at Drive in 2024. With experience in news, feature, review, and advice writing, as well as video presentation skills, Tung is a do-it-all content creator. Tung’s love of cars first started as a child watching Transformers on Saturday mornings, as well as countless hours on PlayStation’s Gran Turismo, meaning his dream car is a Nissan GT-R, with a Liberty Walk widebody kit, of course.
