JOHOR BAHRU (Aug 24): Naza Kia Malaysia Sdn Bhd is pushing forward a four-pronged after-sales strategy to increase Kia vehicles' rate of returning customers to 50% by 2020, from 30% presently.

This is concurrent with the group's target to increase sales of Kia vehicles to 15,000 units in 2020, from 4,378 in 2016, said Naza Corp Holdings Sdn Bhd automotive group chief executive officer Datuk Samson Anand George.

"We want to go back to our glory days, when we took up to 7% of total industry volume (TIV). The customer retention programme is key to that, alongside release of new models and our aggressive expansion in East Malaysia beginning this year," said Samson at a media roundtable here today.

The strategies, said Samson, are aimed to improve customer experience after purchasing Kia cars, as well as to address the issue of maintenance cost and depreciation of its cars compared to its competitors among others.

Part of the customer retention programme includes the development of CRM360 customer management system, a digital customer service platform for quicker and more comprehensive after-sale services, such as addressing customer feedback.

Moving on, the company is also introducing Kia Cares, an insurance coverage at purchase value — as opposed to market value — of premium models.

Last year Naza Kia together with its principal introduced Kia Value 5. A customer can buy a select Kia model, use it for five years and change to another new Kia at a discount equivalent to 50% of the sales price of the five-year-old car.

As a follow up to that, it will also launch Kia Confidence, an authorised seller network which will sell the second-hand Kia vehicles with a one-year or 20,000km mileage warranty.