Fixed Ops Journal - August 2022 - F20

FIXED OPS JOURNAL
FIXED OPS JOURNAL ILLUSTRATION
R.I.P. FOR THE CSI?
I
foj@autonews.com
s it time to write the obituary for the venerable
customer service index survey?
Growing numbers of service managers,
consultants and other industry observers
think it's time to pull the plug
on the dealership evaluation tool, which has
been used to measure customers' satisfaction
with dealerships' service since the 1980s.
Some believe it's an antiquated tool that no
longer truly measures how well dealerships
serve their customers. Others believe it
strongly contributes to mental health issues
for service advisers, whose compensation -
and sometimes even their employment - is
tied to CSI scores. Th at, in turn, contributes to
the exodus of fi xed ops employees from dealerships,
they say.
" Turnover is a big problem for service departments,
sometimes reaching 50 percent in
the last year or two, " says Eliza Johnson, a
principal at Ducker Carlisle, a strategic consulting
and advisory fi rm. " It seems like turnover
is an unintended consequence of the CSI
issue. Service advisers feel they're measured
unfairly or can't reasonably estimate their
compensation without knowing how the CSI
scores will look. "
Furthermore, many things can go wrong
PAGE 20 AUGUST 2022
Johnson: Hearing
criticism " for years "
Bratcher: Link to
mental health
during a customer's visit that aren't the fault
of service advisers. Yet they still take the hit for
those that contributed to an unsatisfactory experience,
Johnson notes.
Ducker Carlisle does annual service adviser,
service manager and technician surveys on
behalf of auto manufacturers to take the pulse
of the industry. In the last survey of service
managers conducted in February, about 10
percent of the 10,000 respondents included
both solicited and unsolicited criticism of CSI
scores, Johnson told Fixed Ops Journal.
" It's defi nitely not just a few people here and
there making critical comments, " she says.
" It's absolutely a legit phenomenon. We've
been hearing this for years. "
Aaron Bratcher, service manager at ChevroCritics
say customer satisfaction tool is antiquated, causes staff turnover
KEN WYSOCKY
let of Columbus in Indiana , part of P4 Automotive
Group, says the CSI contributes to advisers'
poor mental health.
" Th ere's absolutely a link there, " he says. " I
wrote service for eight years and had low
scores from time to time, even though I did my
job well.
" It caused a lot of anxiety, " Bratcher says .
" Th e dealership where I worked terminated
you if you had bad CSI scores for three consecutive
months - no discussion. "
He says a typical adviser has a lot of worries
outside of work - COVID-19, the economy, infl
ation, for example. Th en that adviser goes to
work and worries about getting " destroyed " by a
customer on a survey because a technician puts
37 pounds of air in the tires instead of the suggested
33 .
" What does that do to people? " Bratcher
asks.
Bratcher says he knows service writers who
mentally and emotionally have " given up. "
" It basically takes all the wind out of their
sails, " he says. " If you use the CSI as a bulldozer,
you're going to destroy a person's foundation
of confi dence. Some people can shake it
all off , but others let it pile up. "
Bratcher says he knows three service advisers
who have left the industry because of the
stress tied to CSI scores. " And two of them
Fixed Ops Journal - August 2022

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