Jonathan Zdziarski sent a message to Mark Fields - President and Chief Executive Officer of Ford Motor Company email address that said:
Hello,
My wife and I have become recent Ford customers, moving away from Chevrolet, and youve all done an exceptional job on your vehicles. I appreciate that you make the worlds best selling pickup truck, and have a heritage of telling the customer what they want. I do respect that, but I wonder if you realize how much money youre leaving on the table also by limiting the options available to customers. It seems that every premium vehicle model has some very terrible drawbacks that have kept me from purchasing earlier, and unfortunately are likely to move me away from buying a new vehicle every year or two, to becoming more of a four or six year customer. Thats a few hundred thousand dollars - just for me, let alone many other customers who feel this way.
As an example, Ive recently purchased a 2017 F150 Platinum; its the only vehicle interior I was able to tolerate (the Brunello leather); most customers in the south dont want black due to the heat and dirt it draws. Many other customers, myself included, have skipped the last four years of F150s due to the brown overload in the King Ranch (plastic, interior, etc). This years Platinum has now gone a very awful red color, which many (including myself) are unfortunately going to have to walk away from. The KR orange is equally unbearable. The Limited is quite nice, but Ford sells this as an urban vehicle only, with low profile tires, and can barely even drive in snow let alone off-road.
My family has purchased new vehicles every year or two, and I think a lot of other customers would too if the options werent so limited. Id love a Limited that can go off-road, for example. I would have upgraded to the 2018 King Ranch, except that the new interior is just as terrible as the old; in addition to this, I cannot purchase either the KR or Platinum without the tailgate appliqué in the configuration Id like. Many in the community call this a pimp plate , and Ford seems to be a bit out of touch with the people who can both afford and would like to own such a vehicle. The KR is only available without it in two-tone, and without a chrome package. I wouldve loved to order a monochromatic white, chrome KR without the appliqué, however this is simply not possible; its also not possible to get any other interior color with this vehicle - and the interior design team has really fallen out of touch.
The vehicles themselves are excellent; it feels, however, that if one wants to purchase a high end model, there is always some significant cringe factor that one must swallow in order to own one. The fix - however - is a relatively low risk one with high reward. Simply providing some simple options to get rid of these cringe factors could bring in more frequent buys... a Limited that can go off-road... a Platinum that you dont have to look like a pimp to own... a KR without awful brown plastic everywhere (and perhaps a few more interior color choices)... I think thats all youd need to bring in many many millions of dollars of upgrades on a more frequent basis.
I know I only represent one person, but I am sure there are many more who feel the same way. There must be a way to give creative freedom to your design teams, but without alienating customers. I think youve got a great product, but as I said, I think youre leaving a lot of money on the table with these simple design choices.
