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Smart Shopper Stories from the Sales Frontlines
47264 messages, Last post on Nov 08, 2009 at 6:50 PM
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Gotta jump in here. I totally understand the correlation between good CSI surveys and bonus money. However, it is my opinion that the survey process is flawed from the start. Isn't the whole point of the survey to figure out where things could go better? "Continual improvement" is the term that comes to mind. If every survey comes back with all 5's, how is anyone supposed to know if the buying and F&I process really could be improved? I don't believe for a moment that every salesperson is perfect in every transaction he/she is involved in. Yet, they all want perfect scores and will go to great lengths (bribery, anyone?) to achieve it. I just bought a Saturn last month and the survey came in the mail a couple of weeks ago. I took a long time filling it out, and did give a couple of "4" scores in areas where I thought our salesman could improve. It's my job as a customer to be honest about the transaction and to try to show the salesman or dealership where they could do better, not to kowtow to someone's need for extra money. Same for the service survey .. when they do a good job and fix the problems the first time out, they get 5's. However, I just had my wife's car in the shop 3 times to fix the same problem and when the survey comes for that, I'll mark it accordingly. As an individual who is surveyed for the job he does (though not compensated for the scores), I know how much it sucks to get a low grade. In fact, just today I had my boss talk to me about a "1" score that I got recently .. for a case that dealt with a product I don't even support! Burned me up for a few minutes, but I got over it. Having said all that, I think that the story cluedweasel shared with us seems out of whack. The customer in this case drove every car on the lot, asked for (and got, IMO) really good pricing and still dinged the dealership because of some inner need to never hand out perfect scores, no matter the situation. If that were me (and, trust me, that would never be me) and I spent 10+ hours selecting a new car, I would have given clued all 5's for the amount of work he put into the deal.
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I think it's unfortunate the the survey scores are so all-or-nothing. I know that surveys are that way, so I tend to always score them 100% unless I have a real problem, but it basically means that customers are in a bind, unable to give meaningful feedback unless they're really pissed off. On my last car purchase, I had a fine time with the salesman but I had some issues with the finance guy. I gave the salesman all perfect scores, but not the finance guy. I hope that I didn't hurt the salesman with my scores on the financing portion. (Any idea whether I might have? This was a Honda dealership.)
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Replying to: michaell (Jul 24, 2006 1:27 pm) You're right, it is. It's a blunt tool disguised as a fine instrument that the manufacturer uses to beat the dealer with. I would find it very frustrating to have my renumeration controlled by such a device. The worst part is that a salesman who may have been the very epitome of honesty and truthfulness throughout the transaction, then has to ask the customer to lie on their behalf when filling out the survey, which leaves a bad taste for customer and salesman alike. |
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| In my past experience, it's been the F&I guys that try to slip something in to the paperwork. "Oh gee, how'd that get there, I'm sorry." I've had to mark down my responses simply because the F&I guy tried to pull something, even though the sales person was excellent. | |
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Replying to: tamaraster (Jul 24, 2006 1:32 pm) |
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Replying to: deserth8r (Jul 24, 2006 12:59 pm) At my store, our basic commission was 18% of profit on the vehicle (near enough. There were other factors) or $250, whichever was more. The "mini" refers to the minimum commission. My volume bonus for that month would have taken me from 18% for each sale up to 26%. |
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It looks to me that CSI suffers same problems as grades in our schools - suddenly everybody is "excellent", "exceptional", "above and beyond", otherwise their livelihood is in danger. No more "satisfactory", "OK", or even "good". I remember once seing a VW service department with customer notice that every grade other than perfect is considered a failure by the mfr. That is really stupid. I love giving good grades, but I'm not likely to give perfect 10/10 in all categories. I may give most 10s, some 9s and some 8s. Like to differentiate between say manners of the guy/gal (say loved them) and the price he/she gave me (it was allright, but nothing to scream about). Is that bad?
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Replying to: dino001 (Jul 24, 2006 2:24 pm)
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Replying to: tamaraster (Jul 24, 2006 9:58 am) The largest aftermarket warranty company in the US will NOT sell a warranty on one for ANY price. They used to but no matter how much they charged, they still got burned. Having said all of this, I still like them. I just wouldn't own one. |
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Replying to: tamaraster (Jul 24, 2006 2:38 pm) However, I gave him all perfect scores on the survey, even "salesman's knowledge," because I suspected it was a mini deal for him and I didn't want to cut into whatever other compensation the survey might mean to him. What I did was point out those things to him, tactfully, when I came back a few days later with the check from the Credit Union. He was surprised about the tires, said he had thought that all their cars had A/S on them. I figured telling him directly would do more good than marking him down on a survey. |
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