Customer satisfaction index scores are flawed and inaccurate. Everyone knows it, but nobody is willing to do anything about it
The idea behind a customer satisfaction index is right on: collect honest customer feedback so dealership performance can be measured and customer loyalty can be understood and improved upon. The problem is that the collected feedback is not an honest representation, so the sample set of data is tainted and not worth the paper it is printed on.
Dealers cheat.
OEMs ignore. Repeat
Plenty of dealers cheat on their CSI. It’s not a secret, but the OEMs ignore it. There isn’t a Zone Manager in the country that wants to be the one whose numbers tank because they enforce the rules.
Unfortunately, as long as a few dealers are cheating, the program is ruined for everyone. Furthermore, a few cheaters and OEM pressure breeds more cheaters. Let’s say your scores are honest, but a dealer in your group is cheating. The bar is raised; even if your numbers are good, they are not as good as your cheating competitor (there is no bonus for honesty). You want to earn the President’s Award so you give a bonus to your Sales and Service Mangers to get CSI up.
What do they do? Offer free car washes or oil changes for good surveys, or increase customer pressure with emails, letters and phone calls begging for the good survey. It gets results. The Zone Manger congratulates the dealer, the dealer pays the bonus, and a President’s Award is won. Sadly, once one dealer cheats, the data pool is tainted and the pressure to cheat spreads.
What if the data was good?
If the survey data was clean, OEMs would report back to the dealer what the customers said. This, theoretically, would help the dealer improve, but do dealers really need that?
I think the market is more efficient than the OEM at pointing out dealer problems. If the shop doesn’t fix a car right the first time, the service manager is more likely to get a phone call long before a survey is completed. The survey doesn’t help the store; it’s just an OEM stick.
Even in the case where the customer didn’t call the store and the survey was the only way to hear customer feedback, surveys take weeks to collect, process and share. So even if the data is “perfect”, it’s stale before it reaches the dealership. Damage to the brand is already done.
How OEMs could fix their CSI problems
The solution to the problem is actually quite simple, but it requires a big shift in thought process.
The OEMs need to publish all CSI data online for everyone to see. A large effort needs to be made to let customers know they can see dealership feedback.
Providing such transparency would be powerful in two ways. It would send a message to customers that the brand interested in getting better. Also, it would move the market. Unlike the current system that only helps OEMs, this would help customers decide where to buy. If customers don’t see the data, it doesn’t actually increase word of mouth, so it’s simply an estimate of the likelihood you will get positive word of mouth.
The best thing manufacturers could do with CSI surveys is throw them out and start over.
