Negative Survey "Retaliation"

[Hexley]

In the service industry, below 10 is a serious problem... doesn't matter if it's a 9. It's a disconnect between a customer thinking "an 8 or a 9 is fine." and a company thinking "a 10 is all we want to see."

I've been in a position where I have to call anyone who rates low, many of them were shocked I called "well I rated 9 out of 10, why do you want to hear from me." "Well sir, what prevented you from rating 10?"

If you haven't been on both sides of it, not easy to understand it.

[The1]

Originally Posted by Hexley

In the service industry, below 10 is a serious problem... doesn't matter if it's a 9. It's a disconnect between a customer thinking "an 8 or a 9 is fine." and a company thinking "a 10 is all we want to see."

I've been in a position where I have to call anyone who rates low, many of them were shocked I called "well I rated 9 out of 10, why do you want to hear from me." "Well sir, what prevented you from rating 10?"

If you haven't been on both sides of it, not easy to understand it.

I guess i was just always happy with myself when i received 90% on projects in school.... i wish i knew then what i know now about anything less then 100% is a failure.

[The1]

almost like getting a silver in the olympics. you're a failure..... aparently.

[JimD]

I am in a very different industry but I am responsible for my companies interface to my customers. Until recently I went to each customer once a year to conduct a detailed and structured feedback process on our performance. We used a 5 point scale but I only got all "5s" once from one customer and this is one of the very few all 5s our company received. We also did not do things like tell them that we needed all 5s to keep our jobs. When you do that, you shut down the communication with the "nice people" who value getting along highly. You will only get meaningful feedback from the people who do not care so much about feelings and care more about getting the facts straight. So you miss opportunities to learn. We wanted good feedback so we did not try to push them to high scores. We did ask them to provide specific examples rather than flowery statements because we can do more if we have specifics.

I agree it seems rampant in the car industry but it doesn't make it right. I fill the survey out with what I view as factual feedback. I do not think I've gotten one yet on my bimmer. I have filled them out for my Suzuki, my late wife's Mazda, and my daughters Hyundai. They were all similar and all the dealerships let us know that they expected perfect scores and wanted to know in advance if they would not be getting one. I do not honor those requests unless I want them to do something right now. Even that is a distorted idea of customer service. If I have to threaten you with a low score to get you to do what you should have in the first place, that is now good service?

A car company that did not try to distort things would improve more rapidly than the others. They are loosing data and customers by doing this the way they do it.

Jim

[miiipilot]

I work in the hospitality industry. We give out satisfaction surveys. The scale is 1-7. 7 being the best. I have been told by a supervisor directly, anything other that a "7" is a failure.

There is a large disconnect between Operations people and Corporate. But once people are corporate, then tend to be idealists, not realists.

At times, it makes things very difficult.

miiipilot

[The1]

Originally Posted by JimD

I am in a very different industry but I am responsible for my companies interface to my customers. Until recently I went to each customer once a year to conduct a detailed and structured feedback process on our performance. We used a 5 point scale but I only got all "5s" once from one customer and this is one of the very few all 5s I got. We also did not do things like tell them that we needed all 5s to keep our jobs. When you do that, you shut down the communication with the "nice people" who value getting along highly. You will only get meaningful feedback from the people who do not care so much about feelings and care more about getting the facts straight. So you miss opportunities to learn. We wanted good feedback so we did not try to push them to high scores. We did ask them to provide specific examples rather than flowery statements because we can do more if we have specifics.

I agree it seems rampant in the car industry but it doesn't make it right. I fill the survey out with what I view as factual feedback. I do not think I've gotten one yet on my bimmer. I have filled them out for my Suzuki, my late wife's Mazda, and my daughters Hyundai. They were all similar and all the dealerships let us know that they expected perfect scores and wanted to know in advance if they would not be getting one. I do not honor those requests unless I want them to do something right now. Even that is a distorted idea of customer service. If I have to threaten you with a low score to get you to do what you should have in the first place, that is now good service?

A car company that did not try to distort things would improve more rapidly than the others. They are loosing data and customers by doing this the way they do it.

Jim

i hate this about the dealerships. this is why i refuse to fill these out. My last service (including the 2 recalls) wasn't flawless, but i wasn't bothered by the little things like i had to wait an extra half hour. I expect things like this to occur. it's life. I'm not going to complain because i planned ahead expecting things like that to happen. The SA i was working with at the time was super apologetic, and i was almost getting annoy that he was trying so hard to apologize for something i wasn't concerned with. But again, i could care less at the situation because it wasn't unexpected.

what was unexpected is that when i got home there was already an email waiting for me saying "Just to let you know, there will be a survey sent to you, anything under a perfect score is considered a fail to the dealership"

I want to fail the dealerhship for sending out this warning, but as that's just an asshole move, i won't bother filling it out at all. and instead, i will just ask them next time i'm in, "please don't wash my car" "and please, don't fuss about me, just work on my car, I'm not here for the service, my car is."

[NYF32DRIVER]

Originally Posted by miiipilot

I work in the hospitality industry. We give out satisfaction surveys. The scale is 1-7. 7 being the best. I have been told by a supervisor directly, anything other that a "7" is a failure.

There is a large disconnect between Operations people and Corporate. But once people are corporate, then tend to be idealists, not realists.

At times, it makes things very difficult.

miiipilot

I am an Executive Chef... nuff said : )

[JimD]

If you look at feedback seriously enough times, you come to realize that the score is dependant on the individual giving it as much as it is the service provided. We have one customer, no longer mine, that has stated on several occasions that he will never provide all 5s and he will not let his people do it. He views everything as a bargaining opportunity and if he gave us a perfect score he is worried we would raise his price. This is an extreme example. We have others who tend to give out perfect scores on a smaller survey we send after each engineering service as long as there was nothing really bad about what we did. I tend to think you need to get to the "delight" area for a perfect score and there is not always an opportunity for that.

Service industries should try to "delight" their customers. Not just do everything you were supposed to as you were supposed to but also pay attention to what is going on. Washing your car was probably originally a "delight" type thing but it has now become expected. Returning it at least cleaner inside and out than it was when I gave it to you is nice. Leaving greasy hand prints or debris inside is not so nice. I will happily settle for a dealer who does the work within the time frame they told me the first time I come in for the price they quoted and doesn't return my car dirtier than I brought it in. If you do not do that, and in my experience it is a little rare, then how can you honestly expect a perfect score? Because you begged for it? And if I give it to you, how many more times will you be late or make me come back?

If you want to earn my respect, try being up on the recalls for my vehicle when I call for an appointment so you can warn me there might be more work to do. Don't wait until I get there and you insert my key into your little thingy and your computer tells you. Fill my windshield washer container without me having to ask. Vacumn off my interior air filter - or give me a new one since it's supposed to be included. Do something to make it appear you care a little.

Begging for high scores and in the process ignoring the opportunities you had to make your customers truly happy may make car companies feel good but it is not going to make them grow like they want to. For that, they are going to have to be willing to accept that almost doing the minimum expected is not good enough.

Jim

[The1]

Originally Posted by JimD

If you look at feedback seriously enough times, you come to realize that the score is dependant on the individual giving it as much as it is the service provided. We have one customer, no longer mine, that has stated on several occasions that he will never provide all 5s and he will not let his people do it. He views everything as a bargaining opportunity and if he gave us a perfect score he is worried we would raise his price. This is an extreme example. We have others who tend to give out perfect scores on a smaller survey we send after each engineering service as long as there was nothing really bad about what we did. I tend to think you need to get to the "delight" area for a perfect score and there is not always an opportunity for that.

Service industries should try to "delight" their customers. Not just do everything you were supposed to as you were supposed to but also pay attention to what is going on. Washing your car was probably originally a "delight" type thing but it has now become expected. Returning it at least cleaner inside and out than it was when I gave it to you is nice. Leaving greasy hand prints or debris inside is not so nice. I will happily settle for a dealer who does the work within the time frame they told me the first time I come in for the price they quoted and doesn't return my car dirtier than I brought it in. If you do not do that, and in my experience it is a little rare, then how can you honestly expect a perfect score? Because you begged for it? And if I give it to you, how many more times will you be late or make me come back?

If you want to earn my respect, try being up on the recalls for my vehicle when I call for an appointment so you can warn me there might be more work to do. Don't wait until I get there and you insert my key into your little thingy and your computer tells you. Fill my windshield washer container without me having to ask. Vacumn off my interior air filter - or give me a new one since it's supposed to be included. Do something to make it appear you care a little.

Begging for high scores and in the process ignoring the opportunities you had to make your customers truly happy may make car companies feel good but it is not going to make them grow like they want to. For that, they are going to have to be willing to accept that almost doing the minimum expected is not good enough.

Jim

+1 this is what the dealers should be doing if they really wanted to use this as a learning tool. but it doesn't seem they want to learn from their mistakes. Instead it's being run like a Nazi thing where you make a mistake, you're dead (fired)

[20YRSDREAM]

Call this number & tell them everything that happened to yr 1er. 1-800-831-1117. They will document everything that you said. I just did it today regarding my scratched rims back in March this year. After reading yr story got me pissed and rethink about my incident. I told them that is pretty bad for the "Brand" when the services "Suck" and if I'm in the market again, I'll not buy another BMW just because of that reason.

[tankus]

Originally Posted by Mindgame

Wow. I've already changed SA's three times at Classic BMW in Plano...those other two are still employed. Somehow.

Who do you use there? My SA is Byron. Never had any problems with him

[fermat1313]

Originally Posted by AussieAlf

Wow, I'd never give someone 10/10 unless they went above and beyond the call of duty. Generally a 7 or 8 from me is good work, else how do you signify unexpectedly outstanding work.

Cheers,
Alf

Exactly! And yet, you go to places (body shops, dealerships, etc) that put a lot of pressure on you to give them 10s. If I give you an 8 out of 10, that's a good score in my book. But if I give an 8 or a 9, then I may get a call asking why it wasn't perfect. Well, you didn't come out and open my door when I arrived, you didn't serve me freshly-baked pastries, and nobody once gave me a $100 bill just for being there.

A 10 is perfect, and I rarely get perfect service anywhere. I hate the pressure people give for that, so I just let them know I don't respond to these surveys. Then I don't respond.

Steve

[m_thompson]

Originally Posted by fermat1313

Exactly! And yet, you go to places (body shops, dealerships, etc) that put a lot of pressure on you to give them 10s.

When my E36 was new I received a letter from the dealer explaining that I should give them a 10 if everything was fixed to my expectations. The instructions that came with the survey said that a 5 was "met my expectations" and anything above that was better than my expectations. I saved the survey for the next service visit and used 10s as a barganing tool to make sure that they fixed everything.

[Tessio]

They're insulting.

[DarkRider23]

Originally Posted by Hexley

In the service industry, below 10 is a serious problem... doesn't matter if it's a 9. It's a disconnect between a customer thinking "an 8 or a 9 is fine." and a company thinking "a 10 is all we want to see."

I've been in a position where I have to call anyone who rates low, many of them were shocked I called "well I rated 9 out of 10, why do you want to hear from me." "Well sir, what prevented you from rating 10?"

If you haven't been on both sides of it, not easy to understand it.

Unfortunately, most people don't know that a 9/10 is a failure to companies. It's kind of annoying that most people think a 4/5 or something like that is passing to most companies. eBay is one company that uses the the 5 star rating to their advantage. To get a 20% discount, you have to make sure you don't go below a 4.8/5. The problem is that eBay explains to the people leaving feedback that a 3/5 or a 4/5 is actually good. It drives me bonkers when I get rated a 4/5, especially since the difference between getting a 4/5 and a 5/5 usually equals a couple hundred every month.

[fwmcb]

When I get a survey from my dealer, I always give them top marks. I have been fortunate to have a dealer who really likes to work with it's clients regardless of the series they drive. They have always treated me with respect and have never given me bs for being a student, unlike previous dealers who wouldn't give loaners or who wouldn't accommodate my schedule. I guess I may be in the minority of people who have no complaints.

[bmwsam]

About two months ago I gave a negative review for my local dealership (been having problems with them for a while) and haven't heard a thing since. How long does it usually take them to contact you? I even checked the box saying that I would like the dealership to call me to discuss it.

[DarkRider23]

Originally Posted by fwmcb

When I get a survey from my dealer, I always give them top marks. I have been fortunate to have a dealer who really likes to work with it's clients regardless of the series they drive. They have always treated me with respect and have never given me bs for being a student, unlike previous dealers who wouldn't give loaners or who wouldn't accommodate my schedule. I guess I may be in the minority of people who have no complaints.

Lucky you. I have yet to find a dealer that won't treat me like crap when I'm alone. I'm 20 and I have to bring my parents along just to get any respect at the 2 closest dealers around here.

Originally Posted by bmwsam

About two months ago I gave a negative review for my local dealership (been having problems with them for a while) and haven't heard a thing since. How long does it usually take them to contact you? I even checked the box saying that I would like the dealership to call me to discuss it.

They only contact you if they want to really. I don't think BMWNA forces the dealer to call you and discuss the problems. Sounds like the dealer doesn't give a shit about customer service.

[Skully]

I know a BMW client advisor.

If he gets a survey rating below the national average, $75 is deducted from his pay. Not all dealerships have this policy but his does unfortunately. A few of the questions on the survey have absolutely nothing to do with his performance yet they still count against his score. He hates coaching customers how to fill the things out as it makes him feel like the "sleazy car salesman".

[guydude]

bmw SA pay check are determined by 1) customer ratings 2)amount of completed customers per month 3) base salary

so when u respond negatively, even if it was the tech's fault ....the SA bites the bullet with a pay cut

i always give all perfect ....and just take it up with my SA. he always takes care of me