Customer satisfaction with American-made automobiles increased slightly in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, but satisfaction with Japanese- and Korean-made cars increased even more, widening the customer satisfaction gap that U.S. automakers have been struggling mightily to close. Deep discounts on DaimlerChrysler Corp., General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. models pushed thousands of Big Three-made cars off of U.S. car lots this year, but several observers have pointed out that buying exuberance doesn’t necessarily equal customer satisfaction. Subir Chowdhury, chairman and CEO of ASI Consulting Inc., points out that Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Co.’s laser-like focus on quality and customer satisfaction is evident in ACSI’s report.

“The fact is, foreign makers have been very good at making quality the entire organization’s focus,” he says. “For American automakers, quality is relegated to a department. If there’s a quality problem, the CEO will hammer that department. But that’s not the way it should be.”

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