Nearly 90% of Customers Using Independent Service Providers Are Still Under Warranty, Challenging a Long-Held Dealer Retention Advantage, J.D. Power Finds

SHANGHAI: 16 Jul. 2026 —Overall aftersales service customer satisfaction in China continues to improve, according to the J.D. Power 2026 China Customer Service Index (CSI) Study, rising 5 points year over year to 794 (on a 1,000-point scale). Premium brands have returned to a period of rapid growth, improving 11 points year over year to 809 points. Mass market brands have achieved a score of 789 points, up 5 points from 2025. Within the segment, local brands outperformed mass market international brands for a second consecutive year, reaching 801 points, which represents a 13-point increase from 2025. By comparison, mass market international brands​ at 782 points, are down 5 points year over year.

Aftersales service customer satisfaction has continued to improve during the past 5 years, although the pace of growth has slowed in 2026, with satisfaction increasing just 0.6% (+5 points). Customer expectations are increasingly centered on soft-service value, shifting from an emphasis on hardware facilities toward assessing whether service is reliable. This marks a fundamental shift in customer expectations from passive acceptance to active evaluation, positioning convenience and sense of gain as the new core drivers of satisfaction. While OEMs are working to differentiate themselves by improving service efficiency and enhancing customer value, opportunities remain to better integrate and coordinate the end-to-end service experience.

“The aftersales market in China is undergoing adjustments driven by three intersecting trends in 2026,” said Ann Xie, Managing Director of Automotive Service Solutions Division at J.D. Power China. “First, warranty service is weakening as independent channels are becoming mainstream choices, leading to significant high-frequency service attrition. Second, dealers are reducing investments in customer-focused services amid ongoing profit pressures, resulting in a decline in perceived warmth by high-value, long-tenure customers and creating potential risks to long-term loyalty. Third, despite growing digital adoption, gaps in offline fulfillment continue to undermine the end-to-end customer experience and widen the expectation gap. These trends signal a shift from resource-driven competition to customer-centric operation. To solidify the customer experience, service touchpoints should be moved to earlier in the service journey, as well as to streamline high-frequency interactions and close the online-to-offline.”

Following are findings of the 2026 study:

• Local brands surge, premium brands lead, mainstream international brands under pressure:​ Local brands have achieved overall satisfaction scores of 800 points or higher, narrowing the gap with premium brands to merely 8 points and earning a place among the industry's highest-ranking brands. Local brands have achieved double-digit growth in service team (+14 points), reception and diagnosis (+14 points) and service value (+13 points). Premium brands have seen the fastest growth in service value, which contributes 15 points. Mass market international brands have experienced a significant decline in service value (-9 points), reflecting the deterioration of the customer experience, which creates challenges across the entire service chain and puts satisfaction performance under pressure.

   

• Last-mile experience gap widens amid high digital penetration: The 2026 study identifies a widening gap: the importance of digital value is increasing, while the effectiveness of offline fulfillment continues to decline. Digital service penetration has continued to climb, with digital appointment usage reaching 44.7%​, up 1.1 percentage points year over year. Customer loyalty to digital interfaces during the service process has grown significantly; usage rate of Mobile Apps/WeChat Mini-Programs for maintenance inquiries has surged 1.8 times in 2 years, with younger generations exhibiting increasing reliance on digital services. 

  However, the industry has entered a new phase of digital parity, where digital services are no longer viewed as value-added differentiators but rather as basic customer expectations. Data this year shows that when digital services fail to meet core customer expectations, the negative impact on customers is significantly greater than it was in 2025. Specifically, unmet demands for autonomous appointment time selection and instant closed-loop confirmation post-booking have amplified experience gaps by 2.5 times and 1.5 times respectively, indicating a continuous upward shift in customer expectation thresholds. While brand-owned digital platforms demonstrate strong customer attraction, disconnections between front-end digital functions and back-end dealer services have caused last-mile failures in the end-to-end experience. In 2026, the rate of dealership intelligent systems automatically identifying appointment users has declined by 6.4%, while for unidentified users it has risen by 7%. Furthermore, the percentage of customers required to provide information again upon arrival increased by 3.3% to 4.7%, raising repetitive labor costs and creating negative perceptions due to data silo issues.

   

• Warranty-driven retention advantage weakens as non-authorized channels capture more mass-market customers: Outflow rates for scheduled maintenance and mechanical repairs have dropped by 10.5% and 5.3%, respectively, indicating that authorized channels successfully have retained high-value, essential services through bundled packages, membership benefits and trade-in policies. Conversely, outflows for body shop and car wash/car care services have risen by 8% and 7.2%, respectively, signaling that appearance-related and light services are increasingly migrating to independent channels. Among customers with non-authorized channel experience, 89.9% have had their first non-authorized channel service experience during the warranty period—an increase of 5.2%​ compared with 2025—and 60% bypass the authorized channel entirely​ when making maintenance decisions, signifying a thinner warranty retention advantage for authorized channels. The customer selection pattern has shifted, with demands for location proximity and service hour convenience posted showing the steepest increases, while price sensitivity and emergency repair have declined sharply.

   

• Profit pressures drive dealers to scale back customer-focused services: Due to profit pressures, dealers are reducing personalized and labor-intensive service offerings while maintaining, and in some cases expanding, revenue-generating technical and transactional services. Year over year, usage of door-to-door service and vehicle pick-up and delivery services have declined by 9.3% and 11.4%, respectively. The steepest declines in these services are among long-term, high-value customers, suggesting a reduced availability of value-added services for loyal customers. This pullback also extends to low-cost standardized customer communications. 

• Customer dissatisfaction emerges prior to customer defection, creating long-term risk: Signs of customer dissatisfaction are appearing well before customers change their service behavior, creating a growing risk for future loyalty and retention. The impact is particularly pronounced among long-term, high-value customers with vehicles 37 to 48 months old. Satisfaction among this group has declined across all five people-related service measures, including reception and post-service follow-up. In addition, 35.6% of paid service benefits industrywide are not redeemed due to access or redemption barriers, with long-term customers citing these issues more frequently, raising concerns about the consistency of the ownership experience throughout the customer lifecycle.

The China Customer Service Index (CSI) Study, now in its 26th year, measures satisfaction with aftersales service at authorized dealers in the past 12 months among owners of 1-to-4-year-old vehicles. 

Study Rankings

Land Rover ranks highest in customer service satisfaction among premium brands with a score of 819. Mercedes-Benz ranks second with a score of 813. Audi ranks third with a score of 812.

Chery and GAC Honda rank highest, in a tie, in customer service satisfaction among mass market brands, each with a score of 817. Chery also ranks highest among Chinese domestic brands with a score of 817. Geely ranks second among Chinese domestic brands and ranks third among mass market brands, each with a score of 816. CHANGAN and GAC Trumpchi rank third, in a tie, among Chinese domestic brands each with a score of 812.

The China Customer Service Index (CSI) Study measures customer satisfaction based on six factors (in order of importance): reservation (14%); reception and diagnostic (17%), service facility (19%); service value (17%); service quality (15%); and service team (18%).

The 2026 study is based on responses from 11,129 vehicle owners of 34 automotive brands in 81 major cities who purchased their new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle between January 2022 and March 2025. The study was fielded from January through April 2026.

To learn more about the China Customer Service Index (CSI) Study, please contact china.marketing@jdpa.com

J.D. Power is a global leader in consumer insights, advisory services and data and analytics. Those capabilities enable J.D. Power to help its clients drive customer satisfaction, growth and profitability. Established in 1968, J.D. Power has offices serving North America, Asia Pacific and Europe. For more information, please visit china.jdpower.com or stay connected with us on J.D. Power WeChat and Weibo.