PROTON Customer Appreciation Day Held to Say "Thank You"

SHAH ALAM, 27 January 2008 – PROTON organised a Customer Appreciation Day to thank their loyal and supportive customers at an event held at the PROTON Centre of Excellence today.

The event introduced several new initiatives by PROTON with the aim of further improving customer relationship and creating a stronger rapport with PROTON customers. The appreciation ceremony was also one of the PROTON's ways of thanking them for their undivided support of the company and its products throughout the years.

"We have been talking about customer satisfaction and appreciation for a while now. This is just one way for us to show our customers that PROTON is walking the talk. We are serious in our resolution to improve our service, our quality and most importantly our relationship with our consumers. We want them to know that our customers always come first with us," said PROTON Holdings Berhad Managing Director, Dato' Haji Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir.

He said PROTON is now seeing the fruition of concerted efforts and initiatives to improve operational performance and customer satisfaction. PROTON continues to pursue its action-oriented initiative, the PROTON Customer Action Team (CAT), which is an integrated team made up of representatives from manufacturing, quality, vendors, sales, after-sales, 24-hour assist and Proton i.care hotline to closely keep track on issues experienced by the new model for a period of about three months.

This team works on counter-measures and immediate rectification of registered problems on newly produced units. The CAT track record showed more than 90% of the first 1,000km concerns were solved prior to delivery of the car to customers. CAT underscores PROTON's commitment to improve the quality and performance of its models to meet the satisfaction of existing and potential consumers.

As a result of PROTON's continuous improvement activities and initiatives by the CAT team, product quality has shown a marked improvement with PROTON recording a positive decline in its vehicle's defects-per-unit from the introduction of Waja in 2000 until the later model as was reflected in the recent JD Power Initial Quality Survey Study 2006/2007.

The survey showed Proton Savvy retaining its position in the top 3 ranking of the small car segment, similarly with the Proton Wira in the entry mid-size segment, while the Proton Waja made it to the top 3 in the mid-size car segment for 2007.

In addition to these efforts, Proton Edar has recently invested in the establishment of its first in-house collision and body repair facility known as CoSE Body Centre. This initiative will complement the Proton i.care campaign launched in August 2007 as it enhances the company's after-sales service. A one-stop centre where collision repair, tyre services, major repair and maintenance service are located under one premise, the CoSE Body Centre will set the benchmark for 16 other similar centres nationwide which will be established in the next two years.

PROTON's service customers at the ceremony were also offered membership to the Daring Club as a token of appreciation and acknowledgement for their continuous support and loyalty to PROTON's products and services. To-date, the club has about 25,000 members. The loyalty membership system allows PROTON to identify and reward their valuable customers and organize tailor-made customer appreciation activities throughout the year.

"These and future initiatives along these lines are our way of telling our customers we care and that we are looking out for their best interest. We want to have a long and flourishing relationship with them and we will make every effort to realise that,' said Syed Zainal.

In addition to the appreciation ceremony, PROTON also presented car keys to the first four SAGA owners as bookings for the new model reached 23,000 units.

This encouraging response has resulted in a waiting period of five to six months for the delivery of the SAGA.

Thanking the customers who bought the new model, Syed Zainal said "we hope buyers will be patient as we are ensuring that all efforts are now focused on stepping up production to accelerate the delivery and meet the customer's demand. All the quality standards and expectations of the customers will be met."

"We are truly humbled by the faith shown in us and spurred to continue giving our consumers what they want. We see such market response as one of the indications that we are on the right track in our strategy to produce the right car for the right market, at the right price."

Recipients of PROTON SAGA keys:
Mr. Tan See Mauh
Mr. Chong Tatt Cheong
Cik Azian bt. Saleh
Mr. Lee Piow Choy

About PROTON
PROTON, established in 1983, is Malaysia's largest car manufacturer, in terms of the installed production capacities, as well as design and manufacturing facilities.
PROTON cars are sold throughout South-East Asia, the Far-East, the Middle East and North-African region (MENA), South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Australasia.
PROTON cars are renowned for being value-for-money without sacrificing the expected level of quality, safety and performance. More importantly, PROTON will continue to channel its efforts to deliver products and services that meet customer's expectations.

Source: PROTON

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