SHOPSMARTAUTOS – CUSTOMER INFORMATION – OCTOBER 6, 2020
Why Car Salespeople ask for Top Customer Survey Scores (PT.1)
In car dealerships, it’s common to hear a salesperson ask for a customer who has just bought a car to give him top marks in the customer satisfaction survey that will soon arrive. Here’s why: The salesperson’s pay, and potentially, the job itself, may very well depend on getting perfect 10s in this survey.
Salespeople plead for good survey scores because their pay and maybe even their jobs depend on them. In most dealerships, giving a car salesperson an 8 or a 9 on consumer satisfaction survey’s 10-point scale is essentially giving the salesperson a zero score.
If you had a good sales experience, consider giving the salesperson a top score. Put any performance suggestions in a survey comment box or in an online dealership review.
In car dealerships, it’s common to hear salespeople ask — even beg — for customers who have just bought cars to give them top marks in the customer satisfaction surveys that will soon arrive. Here’s why: The salesperson’s pay, and potentially the job itself, may very well depend on getting perfect 10s in this survey.
Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) scores are an important part of everyday life at a dealership, and for good reason. Automakers want to hear from customers in order to gauge how well the franchise is doing in key areas, primarily customer satisfaction with the sales process. On the dealership level, these scores often determine future inventory. The better the score, the more likely a dealership is to get in-demand vehicles. Depending on the manufacturer, CSI scores also can affect the quarterly or annual bonuses it pays to the dealership, which are often essential to the dealership’s bottom line.
If a salesperson does a bad job, he or she deserves a bad survey. But what should shoppers do if they feel good about the transaction but weren’t blown away by it? The normal impulse would be to give a salesperson an 8 or a 9 rather than a perfect 10. But because of the scoring models used, an 8 or a 9 is essentially the same as giving the salesperson a zero. With so much on the line for both dealer and salesperson, begging for high marks often becomes part of the deal. Some car shoppers know the importance of a good survey and use the CSI survey as a negotiation tool, promising great scores if the dealership will “sweeten” the deal.
The specter of a bad survey, meanwhile, can be enough to prompt a salesperson to turn down a car sale. I have some suggestions on how to proceed, but first let’s look a little more deeply into how CSI scores work in dealerships.
Only a 10 Will Do
Just as receiving an A on a 100-question math test may not mean that the student answered every single question correctly, a top score on a CSI survey does not mean that the deal was perfect. In the eyes of dealers and carmakers, a perfect score simply means that overall, the car shopper was happy with the sales process and satisfied with the service received while doing the deal. You might think “satisfied” would equal a score of 80%-85%, leaving some room above that for “delighted” or even “deliriously happy.” But that’s not how it works.
A CSI target of 95% or higher is quite common in dealerships. And a cumulative monthly CSI score lower than the target score will likely take a salesperson out of the running for bonus pay, which can easily exceed a third of the salesperson’s total earnings. This threat of income loss is why salespeople, and sometimes managers, are so insistent on getting the highest marks possible on surveys. That is all 10s, and nothing less.
It doesn’t take much to bring a salesperson’s CSI score below the store goal. Imagine that a salesperson received seven surveys in a month. If six of those surveys had a 95% satisfaction score and just one 90% score, she’d have an overall CSI score of 94%. She missed that month’s target. Should a salesperson receive too many 94% CSI survey scores in a given time frame, she might not only miss out on additional income. Her job could be in jeopardy.
Some shoppers will never give top scores unless they’re asked to do so, which is another reason salespeople constantly ask for top marks. It is simply out of character for some people to give the highest review scores, perhaps thinking that giving a person or process top marks will remove an incentive to do better.
Make It A Champion Day!
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