Customer surveys worsen new-car buying experience
These brand initiatives need to be done by third parties, says Lorraine Sommerfeld.
Customer satisfaction surveys — order anything online, and you've probably been sent one to fill out. I delete most of them. I bought your product, and now we're done.
Most companies get that and let you be. Unless you buy a car. Not just that, you will have a salesperson beseeching you to give them a perfect score for that customer satisfaction index (CSI).
What? A perfect score? No matter what?
It wasn't always this way. John Raymond, a longtime dealer principal and now a consultant for the Automobile Protection Association (APA), says the creation of the customer satisfaction surveys began in the early 1990s.
“The genesis had good intentions. It was a way for brands and dealers to engage with customers, to be closer to them. Had we fulfilled the promises we'd made? Was the retail experience a good one for the customer?
“CSI scores are a way for the manufacturer to extend their agency into the retail experience. They have contributed to an improvement in how salespeople behave in front of customers,” explains George Iny, president of the APA. “Over time, they have driven some of the more aggressive retailing practices underground.”
Both Raymond and Iny agree that, done properly, the CSI is a way to not only recognize good work, but also to rectify problem areas and allow the manufacturer to step in to address issues. So where did it all go so wrong? “When they started tying those CSI ratings to incentives,” says Raymond.
As a consumer, you are rarely privy to the machinations going on behind the scenes in what appears to be a straightforward car sale. What you don't see are layers of bonuses as targets that are met — or bonuses not meted out when targets are missed.
The good intentions flew out the window and ramped-up pressure on car buyers started.
“CSI scores are used in a punitive manner to deny dealers bonus money. The established `average' scores a dealership has to maintain are unrealistic,” Iny says. “I've never seen one under 82 per cent and they're usually at 90 per cent or 95 per cent just to avoid any penalties.” That is why your salesperson is begging you for a perfect score.
Most of the questions are pretty straightforward on these things. Were you there for sales or service? How were you greeted? Was everything explained to you? Did they do everything that was supposed to be done? Were they polite on the phone? Were they well informed?
As you tick off some version of the standard range (very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, neutral, satisfied, very satisfied), who wouldn't linger over “Well, it was fine, but the coffee tasted like dreck, so I'll just tick neutral on the time I had to wait for them to process my paperwork.” And that's where the dealership goes into spasms.
To that sales rep or dealer, a “passing” grade is basically an
A — an A they may or may not have earned (or earned yet) but one that is being bullied or guilted out of you. And if a brand is developing its programming based on information extracted this way, what's the point?
Consumers also face a hesitation: if I tell the truth, will that impact the service I receive?
Yet when we're car shopping, most of us turn to trusted sources that survey buyers: Consumer Reports, J.D. Power, and others. And that's where the answer lies: take the CSI survey off the brand sales floor and put it with a third party. Remove the incentives and make it mean something again.
I'm not going to tell you to give your experience a perfect grade if you don't feel it was merited. But I am going to tell the manufacturers this current method is a huge sore spot with consumers. Fix it.