After sales surveys

[ToniCipriani]

You know those surveys that maufacturers send you after you buy a car, and every time the dealer will pull out this card and tell you for a certain question about the dealership, they ask you to answer to be "Completely Satisfied" and claims it's very important, what exactly does that do to a dealership if you don't answer the "Completely Satisfied"? Just out of my curiosity.

[Variance]

I don't know for sure but I've heard it's not good for dealers if they get anything less than what would be a 4 or 5 on a scale of satisfaction ranging from 1 to 5. Supposedly they get in trouble with the company or they don't get a bonus or something. Don't quote me on this, though. Edited December 4, 2005 by VarianceJ30

[pow]

With BMW, the salesperson's bonus depends on the 0-5 rating (anything less than a 5 is a fail :rolleyes: ), and it affects the dealer's customer satisfaction index. Dealers also depend on it for allocation, I believe... not positive, though. Either way, the pass/fail nature of the survey makes it difficult for the consumer to be constructive with their experiences.

[CARBIZ]

For new car buys, the survey is very important. Dealerships that have a low response rate (customers who bother to reply at all) or crappy CSI get their knuckles wrapped, for sure. Allocation of hard to get vehicles (Z06, Equinox last year, for example) can be tied to performance. Many dealerships now tie bonuses and other things to the CSI. HOwever, in my opinion, the process is tainted and unreliable. The way many dealers stack their survey results, a "completely satisfied" is a pass and a "very satisfied" is a fail. What this then boils down to, is not kind of a job did the salesperson do during the sales process or what kind of a job they did during the delivery, but rathe what kind of coaxing/badgering and cajoling they managed AFTER the delivery. I know of dealers that send gift baskets to the customer's workplace. Others that offer free oil changes for a perfect score. All of this is officially pooh-poohed, of course, but it goes on. It would be natural for the salesperson or manager to mention the importance of the survey, but in many cases pressure is brougt to bare. Companies place too high an importance on these things. Recently, I stayed at the Sheraton in New York. When I got a survey from them a few weeks later, their score was out of 10. When I scored them mostly 8s and a couple 9s, I was shocked to see that the last question asked for an explanation if I was unable to rank them 9 or higher! In an nutshell, if your salesperson has done his/her job. If they have been polite and nice to you, if everything was as promised, rate them "completely." Odds are they will make more on the bonus at the end of the month than they did on your deal!

[Satty]

The motive behind the "Please explain if you cannot give (whatever the top score is) as a score" or the giant orange "You will receive a survey please mark it completely satisfied" sticker I had on some stuff from Saturn is that if the experience is less than perfect they want to know why before you go and send something in that could effect their performance reviews. They do want the customer's experience to be good, but only because that increases the liklihood of the customer returning.