Volume car brands beat their luxury rivals in terms of sales satisfaction this year, the first time in 22 years, revealed an annual JD Power study based on a survey of over 25,000 car owners in 70 major Chinese cities.

The annual study measures whether and how the customers are satisfied with their vehicle purchase experience in such stages as pre-visit communication, reception, test drives and delivery.

Respondents in this year's survey bought their vehicles between May 2020 and February 2021, and the survey was conducted from November 2020 through April 2021.

The results show that the score of sales satisfaction in the mass market was 733 on a 1,000-point scale, one higher than in the luxury segment.

Specifically, the respondents said pre-visit communication and test drives at volume brands impressed them better than at luxury brand dealerships.

The scores of volume brands and luxury ones were close in terms of customer reception and showroom visits. But luxury brands outperformed volume brands in online shopping experience.

Both luxury and volume brand buyers said salespeople's knowledge of vehicles they sell, how much time they have to wait before getting the keys, and whether salespeople show the same level of care before and after the deal have great impacts on their satisfaction.

Another interesting finding was that 75 percent of the respondents this year said they had decided on the exact brand or even the vehicle model before entering showrooms. In 2020, the figure was 68 percent.

That helped cut the number of car buyers' showroom visits. The respondents said their vehicle purchase involved 2.33 visits, lower than the 2.46 visits in the 2020 survey.

Ann Xie, digital retail consulting practice at JD Power China, said these changes have made online marketing and faster delivery become increasingly important.

As customers have similar sales satisfaction with luxury and volume brands, leveraging digital marketing tools to attract them and creating innovative approaches to enable them get the keys joyfully and quickly will become the new opportunity for carmakers and car dealers to stand out, said Xie.