Proton- Network Upgrading Progress On Schedule

In order to prepare for the first Proton SUV, a more premium product within Proton’s portfolio, the company has placed a detailed plan to extensively improve its customer satisfaction and ownership experience.

Proton recently announced that it was providing support to uplift its existing dealership from single sales outlets to more complete 3S and 4S centres. It plans to have 109 3S/4S centres by the launch of the new Proton SUV, which is scheduled for Q4 2018.

Three months after the announcement, 66 out of 170 applications have been approved for the upgrading exercise, with another dozen close to being finalized for upgrading works.

For Mohd Khairul Idzwan, of Rohamas Autoservices, “I believe the upgrading of outlet to 4S is inevitable. The order of the day is to serve customers better. This long term strategy will ensure that we can compete with other car brands around this vicinity, and elsewhere.”

Ryan Lai of LHM One Stop Car Service Centre, shared that, ”The dealer incentive support scheme not only support us in terms of monetary subsidy, it also gives a clear guide on the standard guidelines on the dealer outlet set-up requirement," 

"Our new outlet will be triple in size with a comfortable customer waiting lounge as well as family and kids area for a greater customer experience. This will definitely make the outlet outstanding and boost the marketability factor of Proton cars.”

Photos of Proton SUV spotted testing by our friends over at Careta

At production level, Proton has also adopted Volvo’s and Geely’s product quality audit scoring system, which has resulted in improved product quality. 

“Moreover, since Geely came on board, it also brought with it quality assessment based on global standards which is the same as the one being used in Volvo. Already we can see improvements in the quality of Proton cars these days. This is evident based on a recent Geely audit whereby the quality has increased triple fold,” added Rozlan Abdul Manaf, of Wasilah Global Sdn Bhd.

Proton is planning to only offer the new SUV at 3S centres as the vehicle is more technologically advanced and thus require more up-to-date support and knowledge.

Features such as adaptive cruise control and autonomous emergency braking are set to be offered in the new SUV.