Alfa Romeo Is Finally ‘Acting Like a Premium Brand’

• Alfa Romeo’s North American chief expects good news when the next JD Power survey results are released.

• But the Italian brand has not performed particularly well in previous JD Power studies, such as those tracking initial quality and customer satisfaction.

• Alfa Romeo remains a bit player in the US, lagging rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz by a massive sales margin. Larry Dominique, Alfa’s top US executive, knows there’s much work to do.

It’s been eight years since Alfa Romeo returned to the US market with the exotic-leaning and tightly sprung 4C Spider two-seater, later followed by the Giulia sedan and Stelvio crossover. Before those vehicles, there was a trickle of limited-edition Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione Spiders, with the first one coming to the US in 2008. A few of these can be found today in the used market, priced over $300k.

None of Alfa Romeo’s recent US offerings have been runaway hits for the legacy Italian brand, and that might be because some were too affordable, so they were regarded as mainstream products, said Larry Dominique, the senior vice president and head of Alfa Romeo and Fiat North America.

“Alfa never should have been at a mainstream price point,” Dominique told Detroit journalists last week. For the record, he’s not signaling an elevated price structure in the near future but was talking about extremely attractive lease deals that were previously available.

“Alfa is a premium brand. It’s just that it was a premium brand that didn’t necessarily act like a premium brand. Now we’re acting like a premium brand.”

For Dominique, that means stepping up the customer experience for those willing to spend at least $44,000 for an Alfa Romeo in the US. For the past three years, Alfa Romeo has scored poorly in JD Power’s Customer Satisfaction Index, which measures satisfaction with maintenance or repair work at franchised dealer or aftermarket service facilities. The 2022 ranking was based on responses from 67,185 owners or lessees.

In 2020, the first year Alfa was includes in the CSI study, the brand scored 792 on a 1000-point scale, placing it 13th out of 14 premium brands. The scores improved in 2021 and 2022 (797 and 801, respectively), but so did the rest of the field. Alfa landed in last place both years.

Dominique is counting on improvement this year. “CSI (ranking for 2023) comes out in a few weeks. Hold your hat. Let’s see how Alfa does in CSI,” Dominique said. “In my opinion, we’re going to be—if not the most improved—one of the most improved brands in the industry.”