Car Dealer Surveys

Wow. I always wondered why when I brought my car to a Dealership the Salesmen and Service Advisors and Managers literally BEGGED me for a perfect Survey.

Now I know why!

https://www.facebook.com/DealerCSI

Evidently, Salesmen and Service personnel can lose their job or have their pay cut severely if Surveys are not marked "top box". It takes 20 perfect Surveys to make up for 1 bad one.

I'm sure there's a lot of people in Detroit familiar with the Car Industry. You can argue for or against the CSI program until you're blue in the face but I think https://www.facebook.com/DealerCSI makes some fantastic points.... even from the CUSTOMER'S point of view.

NOW you know why the people who help you ask for that perfect survey.
Their job literally hangs in balance based on a sheet of paper.
And I don't think that's fair.

http://i44.tinypic.com/8xt30m.jpg

Last month I got a new car. I remember the service advisor telling me to respond to the survey with all positive ratings. I actually liked the guy until he told me to give all positive ratings [[not asked...but told). Me, not being a sheep, when I got the e-mail survey a few weeks later answered truthfully. I actually gave no negative ratings [[I was genuinely happy overall), gave mostly "completely satisfied," a few "satisfied," and one or two "neutral." I had no idea that the guy's job could be compromised by a less than perfect rating. But honestly, I find it tough to overlook certain things. My car had numerous footprints made of dried leaves inside of it [[no big deal, but when a question asks how satisfied I was with cleanliness I can't say I was "completely satisfied.") When I asked about playing music through my phone, the guy point blank told me that I could not play music via bluetooth and had to use a cord. When home, I discovered on my own that I could use bluetooth. So I could not say I was "completely satisfied" with the guy's knowledge of the stereo features.

I agree that the employees shouldn't be harshly punished for less-than-perfect reviews. But at the same time, I feel it is tacky and disingenuous to tell someone how to fill out a satisfaction survey. And the customer shouldn't be made to feel bad if you think you got A service & not A+ service.

Really, I hate dealership surveys because they are not de-identified. It actually puts customers in an uncomfortable situation that they should not be subjected to. After all, the customer just pledged thousands of dollars to a dealer & then the dealer acts as if the customer has no right to be honest about how satisfied they were with a high-price purchase?