“We take the allegations made by Watchdog extremely seriously and are examining them in detail, conducting our own investigations and interviewing our staff.
“While we seriously dispute several of the factual and technical points made by Watchdog, we accept that in some areas we have not lived up to the high standards that we set ourselves and apologise to any customers who feel let down. We are putting into place a robust plan to ensure that we address the issues raised.
“Our company policy on recommending unnecessary work is very clear; we operate a zero tolerance policy and any proven cases result in disciplinary action. We provide written guidelines to our staff to help them to diagnose problems and advise customers accurately and consistently.
“Kwik Fit serves over 4 million customers every year with a customer satisfaction rating of 97%. Furthermore our internal customer research shows that 9 out of 10 customers will happily return to Kwik Fit for an MOT and Service. In both cases our constant focus is how to get this to 100%.
“Our staff are actively incentivised to provide high levels of customer service and compliance. Staff compensation depends on performance achieved in our own mystery shopping programme.
“We accept that in the cases highlighted some things were not done as they should have been, and we are putting a number of measures in place to address this. These include:
“We will not rest in our efforts to maintain the high standards we set for ourselves.”
We are investigating in detail the allegations made in the Watchdog programme. Whilst we seriously dispute several of the findings in the programme and have some concerns regarding the methodology of the independent engineer we are aware that there are some areas where Kwik Fit and our people have failed to live up to the high standards that we expect. We are disappointed in this and apologise to any customers who feel let down by our actions. We are taking these issues extremely seriously and have put in place a robust plan to ensure that there is no repetition.
We are currently conducting a full internal review of the allegations made in the programme and whilst we are grateful for the feedback the BBC has provided so far we are disappointed with their refusal to allow access to the vehicles and paperwork so we can complete this task to the extent that we would wish. We feel the portrayal of Kwik Fit in the programme was not as balanced as it could be and did not take into account the considerable amount of accurate work that is carried out every day by our skilled people.
Our company policy on recommending unnecessary work is very clear; we operate a zero tolerance policy and proven cases result in disciplinary action. Making recommendations to customers involves judgement and we provide written guidelines to our staff to help them to diagnose and advise customers accurately and consistently.
Addressing specifically the items mentioned in the programme. The 10 vehicles sent in for servicing were subject to 1,100 checks by Kwik Fit. Watchdog has challenges which we believe may be valid on less than 5% of these checks. In addition we made 32 recommendations for further work on these vehicles which were mostly older, higher mileage vehicles with no prior service records. Watchdog has challenged 2 of these recommendations. We are unable to review these 2 challenges as access to the vehicles has not been allowed. Whilst we accept that some of the challenges above may be valid and are disappointed with our performance on these items we are keen to emphasise that the vast majority of our work was not challenged.
Each year we survey a substantial number of customers by telephone to establish their level of satisfaction with their recent visit to one of our centres. Our satisfaction score so far this year is over 97%, an impressive figure we think in a challenging industry. We have also sent out over 40,000 questionnaires so far this year to Kwik Fit MOT and Service customers – 9 out of 10 say that they would be happy to return to us. Whilst we are working to improve these figures, it nonetheless confirms that the vast majority of our customers are happy with the service levels they receive from Kwik Fit.
We at Kwik Fit pride ourselves on living up to our core values, of honesty, transparency, value for money, accessibility and convenience. We acknowledge that the programme highlighted that some things were not done as they should have been and we commit to redoubling our efforts to ensure that we maintain the high standards we set for ourselves.
Kwik Fit is one of the biggest providers of automotive training in the UK. This year we will invest over £3.5m in training our people and in total we will provide 15,800 training days (47% up on 2009). Our learning and development programme consists of on- and off-site training and we have a very successful apprenticeship programme.
In-centre training – over 700 in-centre trainers (ICTs) conduct work-based assessment on a broad range of fast fit and some mechanical products and services (such as tyres, wheel alignment, exhausts and batteries)
Off-site training – development in a broad range of more complex mechanical disciplines (such as vehicle servicing, cam-belt replacement and brakes) is conducted off-site at one of 4 state-of-the-art training academies across the country – Derby, Gloucester, Harlow and our new facility in Broxburn, which opened in September 2010.
Apprenticeships – we are incredibly proud of our apprenticeship programme which in 2009 attracted 8,000 applications. 160 apprentices – including 40 adult apprentices - are recruited each year, and each of them follow an IMI Maintenance and Repair training framework delivered by our own Kwik Fit training staff.
Our training and apprenticeship programmes have been recognised by independent bodies as being among the best in class. This is supported by our Ofsted grading as an Outstanding Training Provider and our prestigious LSIS Beacon Award.
“The overall effectiveness of Kwik Fit’s provision is outstanding.” Ofsted Learning and Skills Improvement Service (Beacon status) – “Beacon status provides public recognition of the excellence and innovation which exists within the further education system. It celebrates learning providers that are outstandingly led and managed and deliver outstanding teaching and learning. Beacons, as exemplars and trusted partners, promote and share their excellence and expertise with other providers. They provide a major impetus for performance improvement”
Automotive Technician Accreditation – This is a voluntary scheme that sets the benchmark for all technicians and shows that we undertake regular development to keep our technical skills up-to-date. Kwik Fit is an approved ATA centre and there are ATA sessions running every month for Kwik Fit staff. Our training strategy includes the target to have every Kwik Fit Service technician ATA accredited by 2012.
Furthermore we commit to an additional investment of £1m in training and mystery shopping in 2011. Training will feature both technical competence plus compliance issues.
Kwik Fit has invested over £1.8m in the last 2 years in market leading Bosch Diagnostic equipment. This provides diagnosis, trouble shooting and technical know-how on 230 000 vehicles, from over 150 vehicle manufacturers.
To continue the up-skilling of our workforce and to provide a more complete service to our customers Kwik Fit has already invested £2m on our ‘Master Technician’ programme during 2010. We currently have a team of highly skilled Master Technicians, equipped with market leading diagnostic equipment, who help to resolve problems with customers’ vehicles all over the country. It is a very successful programme and helps to underline our commitment to ongoing development and also to being leaders in our industry.
Each year over 300,000 customers of Kwik Fit are called to see how satisfied they were with their visit to our centres. Over 280,000 calls been made in 2010 and whilst we are pleased with our current satisfaction level of 97% our constant aim is to move this to 100%.
We also receive a very high number of appreciative comments from our customers; we call them ‘Champs’. So far in 2010 we have received over 1,600 ‘Champs’ and one long standing customer who sadly passed away was kind enough to remember her local centre team with a bequest in her will.
In addition we have sent out over 40,000 questionnaires to our MOT and Servicing customers in 2010. 9 out of 10 customers tell us that they would be happy to return for an MOT and Service next year. We are working constantly to improve this figure but this demonstrates that we have both a high level of customer satisfaction and a unique desire within our industry to understand what our customers think and to take steps to continually improve our performance.
Our business to business Fleet division has won 72 awards since its inception and also conducts over 3,000 customer satisfaction surveys per year.
Each Kwik Fit centre receives at least 4 video mystery shopping visits per year and over 24 telephone mystery shopping calls per year. These visits and calls cover all aspects of our work, from customer service to technical recommendations. The results of the calls are discussed with our centre teams and acted upon. Again we believe that this type of programme is unique in our industry and shows the importance and dedication that Kwik Fit have in improving performance.
Kwik Fit operates an extensive centre audit programme where our team of national auditors visit each centre to check compliance with our standards and accuracy of work.
In addition we are proud of our ISO9001 accreditation as this also carries with it the requirement for a 3rd party audit on our standards and adherence to policies and procedures.
Kwik Fit centre staff participate in a reward programme. However this programme is not based on generating as large a sales number as possible. The components of the plan are:
Our staff are actively incentivised to provide high levels of customer service and compliance.
Kwik Fit operates a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on recommending unnecessary work – cases proven can and do result in dismissal. We understand customer concerns regarding the industry as a whole in this area and where appropriate we will take swift action.
At Kwik Fit we pride ourselves on being transparent. Our workshops are open, you can see and meet the people who work on your car and our policy is to encourage our people to take any customers who are interested to inspect their vehicles and discuss any potential areas that need repair. Similarly we aim to be transparent about the recommendations we make. Car repair decisions can be complex and require judgement about when a component may need replacement if it is at the end of its life.
Kwik Fit encourages customers who are unsure to seek a second opinion.
“We will explain the options as clearly as we can, please feel free to seek a second opinion if you are unsure what to do.” - Kwik Fit Website
We believe that this is a positive statement and is consistent with (for example) the medical profession.
“If you would like a second opinion after receiving advice from your GP, you can ask them to refer you to another GP.” - NHS Choices Website – Your Health, Your Choices
Kwik Fit is the largest provider of class 4 MOT tests in the UK and as a result we work closely with VOSA. Our processes and findings are constantly reviewed and our pass-rate against specific test items is calibrated against the averages of the total MOT market via the new computerised system employed by VOSA. We are delighted to report that we have an extremely close and collaborative relationship with VOSA and are constantly implementing innovative steps to improve our already high levels of compliance
One of the advantages to the consumer of dealing with a larger chain is that we provide a point of escalation for any complaints which cannot be resolved with the centre manager. Kwik Fit takes its customer service provision very seriously and we monitor the level of complaints we receive as a percentage of the number of customers we serve. Again whilst we continue to work hard to improve what we do we are delighted to report that we have 999 satisfied customers for every 1,000 we see.
Kwik Fit are the market leaders and we are the biggest brand in our sector. We see over 4 million customers a year and we successfully retain these customers and win new ones due to the quality of what we do and the way that we do it.
Being the biggest has its advantages but also brings with it challenges and responsibilities which we accept. Being number one means that it is Kwik Fit and not other garages that appear to attract mystery shopping visits and additional attention from Trading Standards. We fully accept our responsibility to provide market leading customer service levels and we also accept that expectation is higher from a leading brand. As we have set out here however, we do already take significant care to make sure what we do is of the highest standard, it is worthwhile questioning whether others in the market who are less high profile have similar levels of investment and similar programmes in place.
As we have said above, Kwik Fit takes very seriously the allegations made by Watchdog and whilst we do not accept all of the statements we are keen to address any areas where we have fallen short.
Specifically we are going to put into place the following actions:
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