J.D. Power and Associates

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J.D. Power and Associates is a global marketing information services firm founded in 1968 which provides consumer ratings on goods from cars to restaurants. It is best known for supervising car customer satisfaction tests. It is a business unit of the Information and Media Services Group of McGraw-Hill. Its headquarters is in Westlake Village, California.

In Britain, the J.D. Power car survey is an independent survey of all cars that have reached two years of age at the time of publication. It consists of comments and ratings entirely from the members of the public who bought the cars new two years previously, and are thus in a more meaningful position to comment on the car than anyone testing it for a mere few days. Satisfaction is based on a number of different criteria, and when the many thousands of marks in each area for each car are added up, an overall score is available. The list usually comprises of about 130 cars and is published every year in Great Britain, where it is a renowned source of influence amongst keen motorists. Particular attention is given to it on the popular BBC prime time motoring show Top Gear, watched by millions of Britons every Sunday evening.

Criticism

Critics of J.D. Power point out that J.D. Power sells its services and is a profit driven company, whereas others such as Consumer Reports may be relatively unbiased as they are not-for-profit and do not sell their surveys and results to car companies for advertisement. JD Power supporters however point out that their surveys are influential and respected. Critics of both JD Power and non-profit groups like Consumer Reports point out that their opinion surveys do not screen the people filling out the surveys properly. For instance, no VIN number or vehicle specific information is asked from the subscribers or survey fillers, but supporters argue that it is not necessary.

Services

Syndicated Research
Proprietary Research
Consulting
Training
Automotive Forecasting

Founder: J. David Power III.

President: Steve Goodall.

ISO 9001:2000

External links

[J.D. Power official site]

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