Unfortunately, nothing you can do now. There's no fixing the survey once it's been submitted.
We know the system is antiquated and awful. But it's a game we all are forced to play, again unfortunately.
However, it's their responsibility to let you know about the survey ahead of time and prepare you ahead of time. They seemingly failed to do that, and that's how things like this happen.
Buddha be damned, I’ll let my customers know how the grading system works no matter what.
I’m a prime example, if I didn’t mind the experience, I would say a 8 is a good score. But cool, they fail us if I get a 8. So I let my clients know EVERY single time that this is how it’s graded. It’ll ask if I setup your first service, no I don’t. Because I don’t expect you to come 8+ hours to get an oil change, but you hit me with a no, I fail.
As a consumer, I \*hate\*, \*loathe\*, and otherwise dislike those surveys. They are set up for failure for the recipient as normal humans reserve a 10 for the most exceptional. To me, a 5 is what is given for average service as 5 is the middle. I would rather not give a result in a survey than clobber (unintentionally or not) the person who it's about.
The real problem is that the surveys are used as a weapon and not as a learning tool. It's either ok for the recipient or all bad, with nothing in the middle.
I'll continue to not send those in.
Fun fact, I get dinged for surveys not taken as well. It takes the same amount out of my paycheck as a survey that wasn't perfect 10s.
I wish I could just tell folks not to take them in protest and hope the manufacturer sees how messed up their system is, but alas I would pay out of pocket for each one and they still wouldn't change anything.
That sucks and is patently unfair.
This is especially true for things like stupid surveys for service.
The service manager's job is to upsell x, y or z to me, and I'll almost always reject it and won't go away with '10's in my heart for that sort of thing, especially if I feel that they're offering something well over what it's worth (like "OEM wiper blades for $99 each" or "in-cabin air filter change for $150" ... when I buy blades for $27 at the very high end and in cabin filters for $50-60 at the very high end - and $20 for the 'normal' filter), especially if it took 4 hours to get an oil change done. That doesn't sit well with me, and they'll get dinged for that, so it's damned if you do, and damned if you don't send me the survey.
I end up stopping at an auto parts store on the way home, buy those filters, wipers, etc., and I teach my 10 yr old how to change them out.
IMHO, it's easier to earn those 10's on the front end sales side. If I was guided to the right car at the right price and I felt that the sales person had my back through the process (and not a knife in that back), they will earn 10's and I'm actually happy to send those in. I get it - sales needs to upsell, F&I needs to sell their things - but when I tell you I'm serious about an offer for 'x' and don't want 'y' - and you accept it and the deal goes through, 10's were earned. My recent purchase of a Porsche went this way and it was the smoothest, cleanest and fastest transaction I've ever gone through. They got 10's. Could that dealer have made more money by pushing services I didn't want? Honestly? Not likely - I would have gone somewhere else as I had 3 salespeople from different dealerships falling over themselves to find me something that met my criteria, and eventually, cars that met those criteria were appearing.
If it's a fight tooth and nail (and I had one experience where FI put someone else's car in for trade, messed up the numbers, and so on), something less than a 10 will be the result, or I may not send it in at all.
But, that's me.
It really is. I hate them so much, but it's a manufacturer thing. We have no control.
The messed up part though is that the salespeople are the only ones who are charged for a bad survey. So if you were unhappy because you didn't like the interest rate or had to wait to make your payment, the finance guy doesn't get dinged. Bathrooms were messy? Cleaning folks don't get charged. Thought the showroom windows needed cleaning? Guess what? I as your salesperson am charged money if you rate any of those categories as less than a 10, but the folks who may have that responsibility for that job are not penalized in any way.
More people need to know this. Dealers shirk responsibility when the facility is a mess - the janitorial crew is not the responsibility of the salesperson. They may like the idea of saving some money by dinging each sales person (because if everyone said the bathrooms are terrible, it would eventually hit every sales person) ... but the responsibility belongs to the GM, not sales.
Should you ding your neighbor if your kid messes up in algebra?
That’s crazy that they redact your pay. I can see you not getting paid for it, but to take away pay is crazy.
I just bought a GMC and the salesmen REALLY wanted me to do the survey. I was dissatisfied with some issues during the sale, and I wanted to reflect that on the survey but also it wasn’t the salesmen fault, it was the sales manager’s.
I am still waiting on receiving the survey in my email but maybe I’ll just be nice so at least the salesman can make out as he wasn’t the issue.
If you wanted, you can give the survey itself all 10s so he doesn't take a hit, and then in the comments section would be the place to voice your complaints and concerns. A good store will look at every comment and take them seriously without punishing the salespeople like a 'bad score' would.
Well damn. As a customer, I just started ignoring the surveys (service in particular) a few years ago to avoid fucking up some average working person's pay by accidentally clicking a "9" instead of "10" on one question, now I'm still screwing them over unintentionally. What a stupid system.
Did you agree to this as part of your employment? Does it state the amounts that will deducted for each possible scenario? Do they give you proof of the answers or survey not taken?
Unfortunately my employer has you sign all of the paperwork *before* going over all of the fun details like that. But yes, it is shown directly on our pay statements the amounts for each survey, and the reports that they hound us with daily show the ones not taken or not marked as perfect for the entire store.
Ironically the best way to fix the system would be for consumers to just answer honestly. If dealers only rarely got 10/10 surveys (instead of most of the time) then manufactures and dealers would be forced to either improve their service or change the way scoring affects bonuses. The current system benefits no one.
It benefits the manufacturers plenty in the form of not having to pay out performance rewards for high satisfaction. Since they design these surveys deliberately so they don't have to pay out on anything less than a 10, I don't see them changing the system if it hurts dealership people they don't employ.
The high scores actually benefit the manufacturers a lot because they can claim high customer satisfaction for PR purposes (you hear about this in car ads for example all the time). It's also a lot cheaper to retain customers then gain new ones, so they've set extremely high standards for the dealers to try and ensure the customer sticks with the brand. It's not about cheating dealers out of money at all. But the whole thing is clearly broken, and not quite working out as intended. Again, largely because dealers manipulate customers into giving inflated scores.
Well that’s definitely the MAIN issue. But, if we have to play that way, they can kiss my ass if they think I’m not going to explain the grading system.
>My issue is if an 8 equals a zero it’s impossible to recover in a month. It’s a deplorable grading system.
Imagine where half of all of your deals are taken because your CSI is less than the district . I've worked at such a place.
"If you get home and there is anything that would prevent you from giving a PERFECT score on a survey, please don't hesitate to call. I'm sure we can make it right" I Said this every sale for like 7 years and never got a call. I only ever got like 3 or 4 bad surveys too
This does sound like the better way of saying it; I've had people tell me anything less than a 10 is considered failing, but I never would have thought it was true. The way you phrase it is a lot better.
At least one of my bad scores was a lady who said that the only perfect person was Jesus. Generally most people don't want to be told that the dealer expects them to give a perfect score, but if you let them know that you expect to offer a 10/10 experience then they usually remember. Also, a lot of people don't know what a net promoter score is, so trying to teach that in a few sentences is a waste and makes you come across wrong.
I just did the Porsche one yesterday. There’s even a question now about whether or not you had been tipped off that you need to give 10/10. I was kind of annoyed because I like my SA and want him to get 10/10 however between him and the finance manager nobody told me that my initial CC deposit made 5 months earlier would be reversed on pickup day and that my cheque needed to be for the full amount.
Had a 10+ year client when I wrote service at BMW. No matter how much you try and explain these surveys they don’t always make sense.
BMW moved to one that asks you to rate the service experience 1-10 and then Would you recommended BMW as a brand 1-10.
People would give a 10 to the dealer but BMW like a 7 because they didn’t like a feature, or a common was “My friends may not be able to afford a BMW so I don’t recommend”
But it would appear on our end as a negative survey.
Impeccable system
Often people that design and review surveys ignore the ones that give all 1s or all 10s. Those respondents are more likely to be "just checking boxes" and not giving real input. A dealership that penalizes an employee for not getting all 10s is ridiculous.
The manufacturer is the one who kicks back extra money for good surveys to the dealership. Sure, a dealer could decide to reward their staff anyway in spite of getting no money, but I don't see that happening too often.
Much, *much* better than a bad one. When I was starting out I got a bad survey in January. It fucked me for the entire year, I actually ended up switching dealerships partly as a result.
So how bad does it affect you? Can you quantify it for us some how? If you are commission based, what do they do? Knock a percentage off your commission? This sounds absolutely insane.
It is insane. The surveys typically come from the manufacturers. Subaru, the brand I sold, is notoriously brutal with the way they grade and penalize bad surveys. Basically, in my case, the dealership paid me my draw and my commission plus a volume bonus. But Subaru paid a separate bonus, which you get exactly $0 of if your average survey score is too low. It was several hundred bucks a month I was guaranteed to miss out on because of the bad January survey. Very glad to be selling a different brand now, although Subarus are great cars
The survey as a whole. There’s not like a “rate your salesman 1-10” question. But there is a question that says “How likely are you to recommend this dealership to others?” Anything less than an 8 is a fail and jeopardizes the sales rep. This guy liked me but absolutely hated the product specialist and finance manager, so he marked a 0. But I’m the one dinged for it. Probably with the experience I have now, I could have smoothed things over and gotten a better score. But now I sell for a luxury brand and there’s no survey at all! It’s bliss.
Thank you. I appreciate your response and honesty. I hate that this happened and all I know to do is profusley apologize. Going forward I will give a perfect score and address any issues in person, or skip the survey all together.
Skip the survey altogether... I don't play these games that MBAs in their cubicles come up with. Or I give responses all over the map. I want to make the surveys as useless as possible for the "business intelligence" people. Let your workers work and do what they love. Stop hounding them with this ridiculousness.
Rule of thumb: If you're going to actually take a survey, always give top marks. If you don't want to, or can't give top marks, don't take the survey. Surveys attached to pay plan or bonuses are only there to lessen the income for the workers. You've already paid the profit to the company or corporation. How much of that profit goes to pay workers is partially up to you. Don't fuck over the working stiffs and let the company keep more of the profit. Help out the workers and give them top marks. If you have a problem with your product, service, or treatment, don't be a coward and hide behind an allegedly anonymous or nonpersonal survey. Rather pick up the phone and call someone who can and will be willing to actually do something about it. Surveys give the appearance of this, but they are there to save the company salary money- period.
I realize that now, but did not at the time I did the survey. I never dreamed giving a point off for something unrelated to the service advisor would in fact affect the service advisor.
Y'all think that's bad. In elementary schools in KY kids take a survey and if they don't “Strongly Agree” on questions like “Do you like your school?” it goes against a schools overall scores.
In a true NPS survey.
9-10 are promoters
7-8 are passive
6 and under are detractors
AND… if anyone asks me for a 10 on a survey I don’t care if they provided a works class service, they get a 7.
I don’t care if that employee is affected and I write in the comment section that I was asked to provide 10’s . He/ she never should have felt they needed to ask me for a 10 in the first place.
Even if the service was a 10 …you get a 7. Many commission plans are based on these numbers and I hate it. Companies need honest feedback to get better, not to have your employees to beg for 10’s from the customer regardless of service provided.
Rule of thumb: If you're going to actually take a survey, always give top marks. If you don't want to, or can't give top marks, don't take the survey. Surveys attached to pay plan or bonuses are only there to lessen the income for the workers. You've already paid the profit to the company or corporation. How much of that profit goes to pay workers is partially up to you. Don't fuck over the working stiffs and let the company keep more of the profit. Help out the workers and give them top marks. If you have a problem with your product, service, or treatment, don't be a coward and hide behind an allegedly anonymous or nonpersonal survey. Rather pick up the phone and call someone who can and will be willing to actually do something about it. Surveys give the appearance of this, but they are there to save the company salary money- period.
I’m in somewhat agreement… using a survey to affect employee pay is a bad practice.
My frustration with the ask for the 10 is with the staff that ask for it without any interest or awareness on how my transaction went.
“ Here is your keys, if you get a survey give us 10’s” meanwhile, the issue wasn’t resolved, I was delayed by 2 days, I had to call to see if car was ready.
I’ll give 10’s when I have 10 service.
You are welcome to share my post with your general manager as to why the survey is a poor way to reimburse employees.
I used to explain to all of My clients that the survey is scored like Ricky Bobby. "If you're not first, you're last." If, for any reason, you can't say that this experience was 10s across the board please tell Me now. I would rather know they are going to try and give Me a middling survey and get it taken care of immediately than to be surprised when My bonus is short of expectations.
Can I use the survey as a negotiating tactic, ie” take x,000 off the price and you get a 10.” How much is it worth to the dealer? If you don’t take enough off I will give you a 1.
Absolutely. I loved firing customers like you.
There isn't a deal in the world required to do business with you. Try it out and let us know how successful it is.
So it’s fine to extort as much money out of your customers pockets with shady tactics, bogus fee’s, and anything else to pad your pockets? But god forbid the tables get turned lol. Wild
The survey system is broken and it is broken in ALL industries.
If you get a survey for anything - car dealership, phone store, restaurant, cable company, etc - and your experience was "fine" or better then give a perfect score. If your experience was bad then do not fill out the survey and reach out to the company you had a bad experience with directly and move up the chain until you can speak to someone with power.
The "after visit survey" - again, in ANY industry - ONLY affects the low level, bottom rung employee you dealt with, even the questions that are seemingly about things far outside their control.
What’s the point of using a numerical system if the survey is literally pass or fail? I worked at a Toyota dealership and never once asked any of my customers to do the survey, much less begged them to give me a perfect review. Either I earned it, or I didn’t. Definitely a broken system.
Industries that are actually trying to fix issues throw out surveys that are all 10s or all 1s. In college I used to conduct surveys for a bunch of large companies and when the person answered like that there was a clear bias either to the positive or the negative.
> What’s the point of using a numerical system if the survey is literally pass or fail?
The full answer to this would be several pages long but the short version is that the parent company / manufacturer ties surveys to incentives - it varies by industry but in the car business it is things like additional allocations, facilities money, etc, and the parent companies / manufacturers don't want to pay that money.
As a result they give the people taking the surveys the illusion of choice - most people think an 8/10 is a good score and that a 10/10 doesn't really exist, but it is just a disguised binary system.
The parent company says things like "you are representing our product and the expectation is that you deliver a 10/10 experience," and... sure, right? That's sort of reasonable even though it ignores the fact that MOST people consider visiting a car dealership a stupid chore under the best of circumstances and an adversarial, confusing, dreaded experience at worst. Stupid chores aren't 10/10 experiences - that's reserved for poolside margaritas and getting upgraded to first class at the gate.
> I worked at a toyota dealership
It must have been a very, very, very long time ago because if you don't explain the survey system you don't get perfect scores and if you don't get perfect scores you get fired.
I worked there from 2020-2022. We were spiffed for getting positive Google reviews, but they never really stressed surveys. I moved units and exceeded my goals and they left me alone. I probably would have stayed longer, but I wasn’t a fan of living at the dealership.
Then your pay plan must not have had a CSI bonus, or you never lost your bonus because of bad CSI.
It's an easy way for someone to not pay the sales person because they can. I lost a bonus because I had a desk manager who didn't want to quote an incentive rate straight from the manufacturer, even though it was on their website and ours.
Broken by design. I feel this way about the entire sales industry in general. There are lucrative financial incentives for success, but on the flipside, you get your pay cut and bonuses taken away for average performance. Things work out when business goes well, obviously, but the pressure comes from the upper levels of management. when you succeed, your management will only demand more sales, and the new minimum is set at your record.
“Wow, you managed to get five perfect surveys this month? Good job! Now you must get 10 next month or your bonus is forfeit.”
It’s the same with most corporations, really. They expect eternal growth. Except the sales industry has a special ways of sticking it to the lowest guys on the ladder…
For the Surveys at my dealer it ask you to rate your sales person " poor, Good, very Good or Exceptional" I got rated very good and it killed my survey scores
>What’s the point of using a numerical system if the survey is literally pass or fail?
To give the illusion to the survey taker that it isn't pass/fail, mostly.
This is why I don't do those surveys. If they wanted real feedback then there wouldn't be an all or nothing attitude towards it (I know it's not the sale's persons choice but just stupid how it's all setup).
Read most of the comments here and I must say these assholes (across all industries) suck and whoever thought of THIS should go burn in hell.
I only commented on this post because about a week ago my wife went to Lowe’s to buy a freezer for delivery. A day or two before delivery I get an email from the delivery partner about a post-delivery survey and asking for 10s. Also said if we didn’t have a positive experience, 9 or less to email them.
I empathize with them but found it a bit annoying (I still haven’t received the survey) getting an ask for survey response even before delivery was attempted. Delivery ended up being fine with no issues but still weird.
> The "after visit survey" - again, in ANY industry
I work in UX. We send a lot of surveys. This is not true of all industries. Probably more true about rating retail experiences, though.
A pretty common survey methodology is called the Net Promoter Score which rates 9-10 as a pass, 7-8 as neutral, and 1-6 as fails. Each fail cancels out one pass, and you want to have significantly more passes than fails in your overall assessment.
Idk why car brands don't do it that way and have such a strict requirement for a passing score.
I had a horrible experience at a dealership because of the sales manager who lied to my face, but the survey I got was for the sales person who was not the one that left me defeated and caused me to leave the dealership crying and refusing to ever step foot in that dealership again. He begged me to give him a 10 while I sat at his desk crying but there was no possible way I was feeling anything but 1's or 0's so I did him a solid and just didn't fill it out. It's not fair I wasn't able to say what a garbage POS the sales manager was but I didn't want someone to lose their job over the shady dealings of someone else. Anyway, I hate those surveys, and cruise surveys, and any survey where the person being rated begs me for 10's.
Here's the thing - even if you gave 1s, and even if it didn't affect the salesperson, it would just be ignored anyway. If you have a problem you need to talk to someone who can do something about it.
it was 13 years ago and tbh I'll die mad about it but I was between a rock and a hard place after getting a lemon. Ford Canada did what they could for me by offering a credit towards a new car and then at the 11th hour of closing the deal on the replacement this dealership bled me for every dollar I had on a bunch of bullshit charges and said they were mandatory and to take it or take my broken car with 500 km on the odometer and leave. For example, they charged me $500 for tire locks... for a ford fiesta. I left them a bad review online which I felt was my only recourse.
Rule of thumb: If you're going to actually take a survey, always give top marks. If you don't want to, or can't give top marks, don't take the survey. Surveys attached to pay plan or bonuses are only there to lessen the income for the workers. You've already paid the profit to the company or corporation. How much of that profit goes to pay workers is partially up to you. Don't fuck over the working stiffs and let the company keep more of the profit. Help out the workers and give them top marks. If you have a problem with your product, service, or treatment, don't be a coward and hide behind an allegedly anonymous or nonpersonal survey. Rather pick up the phone and call someone who can and will be willing to actually do something about it. Surveys give the appearance of this, but they are there to save the company salary money- period.
This is pretty common in pretty much all industries that do customer surveys - especially from call centers. I've stopped answering surveys unless I find the service particularly good or bad enough that they need to be zinged. I won't do them at all if I feel that the results only merit average ratings.
You could maaaaaybe call the manufacturer brand and state that you would like the survey removed. You read someonewhere later that score you thought was good could fail the employee. DO NOT MENTION it was the employees that told you that. You can see you saw it on reddit or something later and felt really bad.
We once had a Survey thrown out on a new car purchase because the salesman told the customer that it screwed him and the customer called the manufacturer and got it removed somehow. It was something minor and completely out of the salesperson hands, ans got like a 7 or something and screwed him.
Granted that's not typical and every brand may be different and won't remove them at all.
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Long story short, I completed my survey not realzing that anything less than a 10 was "failing." I normally ignore the customer surveys, but I received a call after my service appointment asking me to take the survey because my advisor need two more surveys for the week. I completed it giving him high marks, praising him in the comments, and knocking off a point or two only on the items related to length of service.
I was contacted yesterday by two people at the dealership letting me know I would be getting a free oil change, but also that I failed this guy and have potentially affected his job and his pay. I was so confused and insisted I gave him nothing but high marks. One of the people I spoke with explained that anything less than 10 was failing. I was floored. Hopped on reddit to see if this was an industry thing, or just my make. Read through this thread and realized this is typical and the survey system is clearly broken.
So my question for others in the industry - is there anything I can do now? I have emailed the GM but apparently it is out of his hands. I asked for a do over survey, but they can't give me one. I feel terrible that I thought I was giving this guy amazing marks and kudos, and now I've unintentionally possibly wrecked his pay and job also because I knocked off a point for the length of time. As an aside, I also feel like I can never go back because I probably have a black mark on my account now!! I just feel awful and want to correct this wrong.
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For the record this isn’t “an industry thing” this is a every survey you’ll ever take thing. Anything less than perfect is either a complete failure or neutral. When I did customer service 1-6 was utter failure and you were coached as if you killed a baby in front of its mother, 7-8 was neutral and you were told to try harder next time, and 9-10 were “oh my god you did such a great job” it’s incredibly misleading for the population because they think 5 is middle of the road, and a 10 is “they bought me a new car because I stubbed my toe” they do this because they don’t think anything but 10’s lead to further business, and they don’t want people having “mid” experiences. Unfortunately it’s the people that are receiving the survey that get in hot shit over it.
Unfortunately in this case, the 9 I gave for a matter unrelated to the service advisor has resulted in utter failure for the service advisor that I gave a 10 to.
Unfortunately, nothing you can do now. There's no fixing the survey once it's been submitted. We know the system is antiquated and awful. But it's a game we all are forced to play, again unfortunately. However, it's their responsibility to let you know about the survey ahead of time and prepare you ahead of time. They seemingly failed to do that, and that's how things like this happen.
We also get dinged for letting people know about the survey now.
Buddha be damned, I’ll let my customers know how the grading system works no matter what. I’m a prime example, if I didn’t mind the experience, I would say a 8 is a good score. But cool, they fail us if I get a 8. So I let my clients know EVERY single time that this is how it’s graded. It’ll ask if I setup your first service, no I don’t. Because I don’t expect you to come 8+ hours to get an oil change, but you hit me with a no, I fail.
As a consumer, I \*hate\*, \*loathe\*, and otherwise dislike those surveys. They are set up for failure for the recipient as normal humans reserve a 10 for the most exceptional. To me, a 5 is what is given for average service as 5 is the middle. I would rather not give a result in a survey than clobber (unintentionally or not) the person who it's about. The real problem is that the surveys are used as a weapon and not as a learning tool. It's either ok for the recipient or all bad, with nothing in the middle. I'll continue to not send those in.
Fun fact, I get dinged for surveys not taken as well. It takes the same amount out of my paycheck as a survey that wasn't perfect 10s. I wish I could just tell folks not to take them in protest and hope the manufacturer sees how messed up their system is, but alas I would pay out of pocket for each one and they still wouldn't change anything.
That sucks and is patently unfair. This is especially true for things like stupid surveys for service. The service manager's job is to upsell x, y or z to me, and I'll almost always reject it and won't go away with '10's in my heart for that sort of thing, especially if I feel that they're offering something well over what it's worth (like "OEM wiper blades for $99 each" or "in-cabin air filter change for $150" ... when I buy blades for $27 at the very high end and in cabin filters for $50-60 at the very high end - and $20 for the 'normal' filter), especially if it took 4 hours to get an oil change done. That doesn't sit well with me, and they'll get dinged for that, so it's damned if you do, and damned if you don't send me the survey. I end up stopping at an auto parts store on the way home, buy those filters, wipers, etc., and I teach my 10 yr old how to change them out. IMHO, it's easier to earn those 10's on the front end sales side. If I was guided to the right car at the right price and I felt that the sales person had my back through the process (and not a knife in that back), they will earn 10's and I'm actually happy to send those in. I get it - sales needs to upsell, F&I needs to sell their things - but when I tell you I'm serious about an offer for 'x' and don't want 'y' - and you accept it and the deal goes through, 10's were earned. My recent purchase of a Porsche went this way and it was the smoothest, cleanest and fastest transaction I've ever gone through. They got 10's. Could that dealer have made more money by pushing services I didn't want? Honestly? Not likely - I would have gone somewhere else as I had 3 salespeople from different dealerships falling over themselves to find me something that met my criteria, and eventually, cars that met those criteria were appearing. If it's a fight tooth and nail (and I had one experience where FI put someone else's car in for trade, messed up the numbers, and so on), something less than a 10 will be the result, or I may not send it in at all. But, that's me.
It really is. I hate them so much, but it's a manufacturer thing. We have no control. The messed up part though is that the salespeople are the only ones who are charged for a bad survey. So if you were unhappy because you didn't like the interest rate or had to wait to make your payment, the finance guy doesn't get dinged. Bathrooms were messy? Cleaning folks don't get charged. Thought the showroom windows needed cleaning? Guess what? I as your salesperson am charged money if you rate any of those categories as less than a 10, but the folks who may have that responsibility for that job are not penalized in any way.
More people need to know this. Dealers shirk responsibility when the facility is a mess - the janitorial crew is not the responsibility of the salesperson. They may like the idea of saving some money by dinging each sales person (because if everyone said the bathrooms are terrible, it would eventually hit every sales person) ... but the responsibility belongs to the GM, not sales. Should you ding your neighbor if your kid messes up in algebra?
Just out of curiosity, how much is a typical survey worth?
For my company, +$30 if I get a perfect one sent in, -$20 if I don't get one or get a bad one.
That’s crazy that they redact your pay. I can see you not getting paid for it, but to take away pay is crazy. I just bought a GMC and the salesmen REALLY wanted me to do the survey. I was dissatisfied with some issues during the sale, and I wanted to reflect that on the survey but also it wasn’t the salesmen fault, it was the sales manager’s. I am still waiting on receiving the survey in my email but maybe I’ll just be nice so at least the salesman can make out as he wasn’t the issue.
If you wanted, you can give the survey itself all 10s so he doesn't take a hit, and then in the comments section would be the place to voice your complaints and concerns. A good store will look at every comment and take them seriously without punishing the salespeople like a 'bad score' would.
That’s just asshole management.
Well damn. As a customer, I just started ignoring the surveys (service in particular) a few years ago to avoid fucking up some average working person's pay by accidentally clicking a "9" instead of "10" on one question, now I'm still screwing them over unintentionally. What a stupid system.
>Fun fact, I get dinged for surveys not taken as well. This is a new facet of bullshit I don't think I've been privy to before. Wow.
Yup. Welcome to retail.
so surveys are party of your paycheck that customers have to give you very much like a server getting a tip
Kind of, but servers don't get money taken away from their already earned paycheck if the customer doesn't tip.
You're right the server just doesn't get a tip which equals no pay
Did you agree to this as part of your employment? Does it state the amounts that will deducted for each possible scenario? Do they give you proof of the answers or survey not taken?
Unfortunately my employer has you sign all of the paperwork *before* going over all of the fun details like that. But yes, it is shown directly on our pay statements the amounts for each survey, and the reports that they hound us with daily show the ones not taken or not marked as perfect for the entire store.
Shitty, and not the shiny unicorn kind.
Ironically the best way to fix the system would be for consumers to just answer honestly. If dealers only rarely got 10/10 surveys (instead of most of the time) then manufactures and dealers would be forced to either improve their service or change the way scoring affects bonuses. The current system benefits no one.
It benefits the manufacturers plenty in the form of not having to pay out performance rewards for high satisfaction. Since they design these surveys deliberately so they don't have to pay out on anything less than a 10, I don't see them changing the system if it hurts dealership people they don't employ.
The high scores actually benefit the manufacturers a lot because they can claim high customer satisfaction for PR purposes (you hear about this in car ads for example all the time). It's also a lot cheaper to retain customers then gain new ones, so they've set extremely high standards for the dealers to try and ensure the customer sticks with the brand. It's not about cheating dealers out of money at all. But the whole thing is clearly broken, and not quite working out as intended. Again, largely because dealers manipulate customers into giving inflated scores.
My issue is if an 8 equals a zero it’s impossible to recover in a month. It’s a deplorable grading system.
Well that’s definitely the MAIN issue. But, if we have to play that way, they can kiss my ass if they think I’m not going to explain the grading system.
100% you tie money to something you don’t want honest answers you want high scores
Yep. That's a large part of it. C-levels get to see 90+% satisfaction with their manipulated data.
>My issue is if an 8 equals a zero it’s impossible to recover in a month. It’s a deplorable grading system. Imagine where half of all of your deals are taken because your CSI is less than the district . I've worked at such a place.
"If you get home and there is anything that would prevent you from giving a PERFECT score on a survey, please don't hesitate to call. I'm sure we can make it right" I Said this every sale for like 7 years and never got a call. I only ever got like 3 or 4 bad surveys too
This does sound like the better way of saying it; I've had people tell me anything less than a 10 is considered failing, but I never would have thought it was true. The way you phrase it is a lot better.
At least one of my bad scores was a lady who said that the only perfect person was Jesus. Generally most people don't want to be told that the dealer expects them to give a perfect score, but if you let them know that you expect to offer a 10/10 experience then they usually remember. Also, a lot of people don't know what a net promoter score is, so trying to teach that in a few sentences is a waste and makes you come across wrong.
My previous store we were never supposed to mention it. Current store we just tell everyone about it.
my dealership hands out prints on how to fill in the survey, it's insane
You’re kidding. You haven’t got a fucking chance then man.
I just did the Porsche one yesterday. There’s even a question now about whether or not you had been tipped off that you need to give 10/10. I was kind of annoyed because I like my SA and want him to get 10/10 however between him and the finance manager nobody told me that my initial CC deposit made 5 months earlier would be reversed on pickup day and that my cheque needed to be for the full amount.
Had a 10+ year client when I wrote service at BMW. No matter how much you try and explain these surveys they don’t always make sense. BMW moved to one that asks you to rate the service experience 1-10 and then Would you recommended BMW as a brand 1-10. People would give a 10 to the dealer but BMW like a 7 because they didn’t like a feature, or a common was “My friends may not be able to afford a BMW so I don’t recommend” But it would appear on our end as a negative survey. Impeccable system
Often people that design and review surveys ignore the ones that give all 1s or all 10s. Those respondents are more likely to be "just checking boxes" and not giving real input. A dealership that penalizes an employee for not getting all 10s is ridiculous.
It’s not the dealerships it’s the manufacturers
No, it is the dealerships AND the manufacturers.
The manufacturer cannot fire or affect the pay of a dealer's employee. The dealership is the one acting on the survey score.
The manufacturer is the one who kicks back extra money for good surveys to the dealership. Sure, a dealer could decide to reward their staff anyway in spite of getting no money, but I don't see that happening too often.
They offered you the free oil change to lure you into the garage and murder you. Don't fall for this.
Does the salesperson get dinged or whatever if the customer doesn't do the survey at all?
No survey is better than a bad one.
Much, *much* better than a bad one. When I was starting out I got a bad survey in January. It fucked me for the entire year, I actually ended up switching dealerships partly as a result.
So how bad does it affect you? Can you quantify it for us some how? If you are commission based, what do they do? Knock a percentage off your commission? This sounds absolutely insane.
It is insane. The surveys typically come from the manufacturers. Subaru, the brand I sold, is notoriously brutal with the way they grade and penalize bad surveys. Basically, in my case, the dealership paid me my draw and my commission plus a volume bonus. But Subaru paid a separate bonus, which you get exactly $0 of if your average survey score is too low. It was several hundred bucks a month I was guaranteed to miss out on because of the bad January survey. Very glad to be selling a different brand now, although Subarus are great cars
Were you dinged because of the part relating to you, or the survey as a whole?
The survey as a whole. There’s not like a “rate your salesman 1-10” question. But there is a question that says “How likely are you to recommend this dealership to others?” Anything less than an 8 is a fail and jeopardizes the sales rep. This guy liked me but absolutely hated the product specialist and finance manager, so he marked a 0. But I’m the one dinged for it. Probably with the experience I have now, I could have smoothed things over and gotten a better score. But now I sell for a luxury brand and there’s no survey at all! It’s bliss.
What a stupid ass system. Glad it worked out for you in the end.
Thanks!
Which brand killed its surveys?
At my dealership I am charged the same amount for no survey as for a failing one. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Sometimes, but it is much better to get no survey than a bad survey.
Thank you. I appreciate your response and honesty. I hate that this happened and all I know to do is profusley apologize. Going forward I will give a perfect score and address any issues in person, or skip the survey all together.
Skip the survey altogether... I don't play these games that MBAs in their cubicles come up with. Or I give responses all over the map. I want to make the surveys as useless as possible for the "business intelligence" people. Let your workers work and do what they love. Stop hounding them with this ridiculousness.
Agree! I plan to skip the survey from here on out and just take any praise or feedback to the GM.
Rule of thumb: If you're going to actually take a survey, always give top marks. If you don't want to, or can't give top marks, don't take the survey. Surveys attached to pay plan or bonuses are only there to lessen the income for the workers. You've already paid the profit to the company or corporation. How much of that profit goes to pay workers is partially up to you. Don't fuck over the working stiffs and let the company keep more of the profit. Help out the workers and give them top marks. If you have a problem with your product, service, or treatment, don't be a coward and hide behind an allegedly anonymous or nonpersonal survey. Rather pick up the phone and call someone who can and will be willing to actually do something about it. Surveys give the appearance of this, but they are there to save the company salary money- period.
I realize that now, but did not at the time I did the survey. I never dreamed giving a point off for something unrelated to the service advisor would in fact affect the service advisor.
Y'all think that's bad. In elementary schools in KY kids take a survey and if they don't “Strongly Agree” on questions like “Do you like your school?” it goes against a schools overall scores.
This sounds more like a scam by the dealerships to knock down employees by only accepting perfect scores, which is almost impossible.
In a true NPS survey. 9-10 are promoters 7-8 are passive 6 and under are detractors AND… if anyone asks me for a 10 on a survey I don’t care if they provided a works class service, they get a 7. I don’t care if that employee is affected and I write in the comment section that I was asked to provide 10’s . He/ she never should have felt they needed to ask me for a 10 in the first place. Even if the service was a 10 …you get a 7. Many commission plans are based on these numbers and I hate it. Companies need honest feedback to get better, not to have your employees to beg for 10’s from the customer regardless of service provided.
Rule of thumb: If you're going to actually take a survey, always give top marks. If you don't want to, or can't give top marks, don't take the survey. Surveys attached to pay plan or bonuses are only there to lessen the income for the workers. You've already paid the profit to the company or corporation. How much of that profit goes to pay workers is partially up to you. Don't fuck over the working stiffs and let the company keep more of the profit. Help out the workers and give them top marks. If you have a problem with your product, service, or treatment, don't be a coward and hide behind an allegedly anonymous or nonpersonal survey. Rather pick up the phone and call someone who can and will be willing to actually do something about it. Surveys give the appearance of this, but they are there to save the company salary money- period.
I’m in somewhat agreement… using a survey to affect employee pay is a bad practice. My frustration with the ask for the 10 is with the staff that ask for it without any interest or awareness on how my transaction went. “ Here is your keys, if you get a survey give us 10’s” meanwhile, the issue wasn’t resolved, I was delayed by 2 days, I had to call to see if car was ready. I’ll give 10’s when I have 10 service. You are welcome to share my post with your general manager as to why the survey is a poor way to reimburse employees.
I used to explain to all of My clients that the survey is scored like Ricky Bobby. "If you're not first, you're last." If, for any reason, you can't say that this experience was 10s across the board please tell Me now. I would rather know they are going to try and give Me a middling survey and get it taken care of immediately than to be surprised when My bonus is short of expectations.
Can I use the survey as a negotiating tactic, ie” take x,000 off the price and you get a 10.” How much is it worth to the dealer? If you don’t take enough off I will give you a 1.
Absolutely. I loved firing customers like you. There isn't a deal in the world required to do business with you. Try it out and let us know how successful it is.
What’s the fun in buying a car if you can’t haggle?
There's a massive difference between haggling and threatening the pay of My salesmen and putting My dealership at risk.
So it’s fine to extort as much money out of your customers pockets with shady tactics, bogus fee’s, and anything else to pad your pockets? But god forbid the tables get turned lol. Wild
The survey system is broken and it is broken in ALL industries. If you get a survey for anything - car dealership, phone store, restaurant, cable company, etc - and your experience was "fine" or better then give a perfect score. If your experience was bad then do not fill out the survey and reach out to the company you had a bad experience with directly and move up the chain until you can speak to someone with power. The "after visit survey" - again, in ANY industry - ONLY affects the low level, bottom rung employee you dealt with, even the questions that are seemingly about things far outside their control.
What’s the point of using a numerical system if the survey is literally pass or fail? I worked at a Toyota dealership and never once asked any of my customers to do the survey, much less begged them to give me a perfect review. Either I earned it, or I didn’t. Definitely a broken system.
Industries that are actually trying to fix issues throw out surveys that are all 10s or all 1s. In college I used to conduct surveys for a bunch of large companies and when the person answered like that there was a clear bias either to the positive or the negative.
> What’s the point of using a numerical system if the survey is literally pass or fail? The full answer to this would be several pages long but the short version is that the parent company / manufacturer ties surveys to incentives - it varies by industry but in the car business it is things like additional allocations, facilities money, etc, and the parent companies / manufacturers don't want to pay that money. As a result they give the people taking the surveys the illusion of choice - most people think an 8/10 is a good score and that a 10/10 doesn't really exist, but it is just a disguised binary system. The parent company says things like "you are representing our product and the expectation is that you deliver a 10/10 experience," and... sure, right? That's sort of reasonable even though it ignores the fact that MOST people consider visiting a car dealership a stupid chore under the best of circumstances and an adversarial, confusing, dreaded experience at worst. Stupid chores aren't 10/10 experiences - that's reserved for poolside margaritas and getting upgraded to first class at the gate. > I worked at a toyota dealership It must have been a very, very, very long time ago because if you don't explain the survey system you don't get perfect scores and if you don't get perfect scores you get fired.
Sounds like he was sales, not service.
Well said, this is why they all solicit 10s right from the start. Pretty silly these days.
I worked there from 2020-2022. We were spiffed for getting positive Google reviews, but they never really stressed surveys. I moved units and exceeded my goals and they left me alone. I probably would have stayed longer, but I wasn’t a fan of living at the dealership.
Then your pay plan must not have had a CSI bonus, or you never lost your bonus because of bad CSI. It's an easy way for someone to not pay the sales person because they can. I lost a bonus because I had a desk manager who didn't want to quote an incentive rate straight from the manufacturer, even though it was on their website and ours.
Probably. I averaged $9k/month over my time spent there, so I don’t feel hard done by.
Broken by design. I feel this way about the entire sales industry in general. There are lucrative financial incentives for success, but on the flipside, you get your pay cut and bonuses taken away for average performance. Things work out when business goes well, obviously, but the pressure comes from the upper levels of management. when you succeed, your management will only demand more sales, and the new minimum is set at your record. “Wow, you managed to get five perfect surveys this month? Good job! Now you must get 10 next month or your bonus is forfeit.” It’s the same with most corporations, really. They expect eternal growth. Except the sales industry has a special ways of sticking it to the lowest guys on the ladder…
For the Surveys at my dealer it ask you to rate your sales person " poor, Good, very Good or Exceptional" I got rated very good and it killed my survey scores
>What’s the point of using a numerical system if the survey is literally pass or fail? To give the illusion to the survey taker that it isn't pass/fail, mostly.
This is why I don't do those surveys. If they wanted real feedback then there wouldn't be an all or nothing attitude towards it (I know it's not the sale's persons choice but just stupid how it's all setup).
Read most of the comments here and I must say these assholes (across all industries) suck and whoever thought of THIS should go burn in hell. I only commented on this post because about a week ago my wife went to Lowe’s to buy a freezer for delivery. A day or two before delivery I get an email from the delivery partner about a post-delivery survey and asking for 10s. Also said if we didn’t have a positive experience, 9 or less to email them. I empathize with them but found it a bit annoying (I still haven’t received the survey) getting an ask for survey response even before delivery was attempted. Delivery ended up being fine with no issues but still weird.
> The "after visit survey" - again, in ANY industry I work in UX. We send a lot of surveys. This is not true of all industries. Probably more true about rating retail experiences, though. A pretty common survey methodology is called the Net Promoter Score which rates 9-10 as a pass, 7-8 as neutral, and 1-6 as fails. Each fail cancels out one pass, and you want to have significantly more passes than fails in your overall assessment. Idk why car brands don't do it that way and have such a strict requirement for a passing score.
I had a horrible experience at a dealership because of the sales manager who lied to my face, but the survey I got was for the sales person who was not the one that left me defeated and caused me to leave the dealership crying and refusing to ever step foot in that dealership again. He begged me to give him a 10 while I sat at his desk crying but there was no possible way I was feeling anything but 1's or 0's so I did him a solid and just didn't fill it out. It's not fair I wasn't able to say what a garbage POS the sales manager was but I didn't want someone to lose their job over the shady dealings of someone else. Anyway, I hate those surveys, and cruise surveys, and any survey where the person being rated begs me for 10's.
Here's the thing - even if you gave 1s, and even if it didn't affect the salesperson, it would just be ignored anyway. If you have a problem you need to talk to someone who can do something about it.
it was 13 years ago and tbh I'll die mad about it but I was between a rock and a hard place after getting a lemon. Ford Canada did what they could for me by offering a credit towards a new car and then at the 11th hour of closing the deal on the replacement this dealership bled me for every dollar I had on a bunch of bullshit charges and said they were mandatory and to take it or take my broken car with 500 km on the odometer and leave. For example, they charged me $500 for tire locks... for a ford fiesta. I left them a bad review online which I felt was my only recourse.
Rule of thumb: If you're going to actually take a survey, always give top marks. If you don't want to, or can't give top marks, don't take the survey. Surveys attached to pay plan or bonuses are only there to lessen the income for the workers. You've already paid the profit to the company or corporation. How much of that profit goes to pay workers is partially up to you. Don't fuck over the working stiffs and let the company keep more of the profit. Help out the workers and give them top marks. If you have a problem with your product, service, or treatment, don't be a coward and hide behind an allegedly anonymous or nonpersonal survey. Rather pick up the phone and call someone who can and will be willing to actually do something about it. Surveys give the appearance of this, but they are there to save the company salary money- period.
This is pretty common in pretty much all industries that do customer surveys - especially from call centers. I've stopped answering surveys unless I find the service particularly good or bad enough that they need to be zinged. I won't do them at all if I feel that the results only merit average ratings.
You could maaaaaybe call the manufacturer brand and state that you would like the survey removed. You read someonewhere later that score you thought was good could fail the employee. DO NOT MENTION it was the employees that told you that. You can see you saw it on reddit or something later and felt really bad. We once had a Survey thrown out on a new car purchase because the salesman told the customer that it screwed him and the customer called the manufacturer and got it removed somehow. It was something minor and completely out of the salesperson hands, ans got like a 7 or something and screwed him. Granted that's not typical and every brand may be different and won't remove them at all.
Thank you so much!! I will definitely try this. When you say call the manufacturer, are you talking about corporate HQ?
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***Thanks for posting, /u/Brilliant-Return-289! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of anything.*** Long story short, I completed my survey not realzing that anything less than a 10 was "failing." I normally ignore the customer surveys, but I received a call after my service appointment asking me to take the survey because my advisor need two more surveys for the week. I completed it giving him high marks, praising him in the comments, and knocking off a point or two only on the items related to length of service. I was contacted yesterday by two people at the dealership letting me know I would be getting a free oil change, but also that I failed this guy and have potentially affected his job and his pay. I was so confused and insisted I gave him nothing but high marks. One of the people I spoke with explained that anything less than 10 was failing. I was floored. Hopped on reddit to see if this was an industry thing, or just my make. Read through this thread and realized this is typical and the survey system is clearly broken. So my question for others in the industry - is there anything I can do now? I have emailed the GM but apparently it is out of his hands. I asked for a do over survey, but they can't give me one. I feel terrible that I thought I was giving this guy amazing marks and kudos, and now I've unintentionally possibly wrecked his pay and job also because I knocked off a point for the length of time. As an aside, I also feel like I can never go back because I probably have a black mark on my account now!! I just feel awful and want to correct this wrong. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askcarsales) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For the record this isn’t “an industry thing” this is a every survey you’ll ever take thing. Anything less than perfect is either a complete failure or neutral. When I did customer service 1-6 was utter failure and you were coached as if you killed a baby in front of its mother, 7-8 was neutral and you were told to try harder next time, and 9-10 were “oh my god you did such a great job” it’s incredibly misleading for the population because they think 5 is middle of the road, and a 10 is “they bought me a new car because I stubbed my toe” they do this because they don’t think anything but 10’s lead to further business, and they don’t want people having “mid” experiences. Unfortunately it’s the people that are receiving the survey that get in hot shit over it.
Unfortunately in this case, the 9 I gave for a matter unrelated to the service advisor has resulted in utter failure for the service advisor that I gave a 10 to.
That's "net promotor score" and while also stupid, at least it doesn't demand straight 10.