For the past eleven years, Lexus has been Numero Uno in U.S. luxury vehicle sales. Not so in China, where Germanic giants BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi lead the pack and Lexus is relegated to a paltry fourth.
One issue is customer service, or rather a level of customer service that fails to differentiate Lexus from its competitors. As business owner and Lexus customer Maggie Lin explains: �Nothing stands out from Lexus's service. I don't feel there's anything special compared with what Audi has been doing. They are more or less the same.�
It�s one of the reasons Lexus�s Chinese arm has sent two of its top managers to the United States to learn how things are done at the brand�s North American operation. According to J.D. Power, Lexus sold just a fifth of market leader Audi�s sales total for 2010. That�s just 49,000 vehicles to the latter�s 236,000. There�s also the issue of consumer tastes.
