Fixed Ops Journal - August 2022 - F21

were very good service writers, " he says.
Joe Chambers, fi xed ops director at International
Autos in Tinley Park, a Chicago suburb,
agrees with Bratcher. International Autos
owns seven dealerships in Illinois, Minnesota
and Wisconsin.
" Th ere's defi nitely a link between CSI scores
and stress, " says Chambers, who also co-hosts
a show via Zoom called " Service Drive Live "
on Sundays with colleague Erick Jauregui. " A
lot of times I see guys get notifi cations of survey
results and it legitimately ruins their day.
" Clearly, it's not the only contributing factor
to stress, " he adds. " But if they get a text while
watching TV at home or playing with their
kids, it rocks them to their core.
" Th ey know if they don't make their numbers,
they don't get the bonuses. "
Gaming the system
CSI elimination was a topic on " Service
Drive Live " in June. Th e overall response from
participants was that the CSI has outlived its
usefulness and generally doesn't paint an accurate
picture of how dealerships treat customers.
" It's
too long and drawn out, " Chambers
says. " Th ey lose their diagnostic ability. ...
We'd be better served with fewer questions. "
Moreover, customers often weaponize CSI
scores and use them as leverage for getting
service discounts, he adds.
" Customers work the system, " he says. " Th ey
know what CSI scores mean to a dealership,
so they walk in and say, 'I have a survey in
hand - what are you going to do for me?' "
Additionally, some dealers game
the system by coaching customers
about providing good CSI scores.
Th at creates good scores that don't
represent the dealership's actual
level of service.
" Th at's refl ected when we see
that customer retention is much
lower than customer satisfaction,
often by quite a bit, " Ducker Carlisle's
Johnson points out. " It's totally
counter intuitive ... and OEMs often
know there's a disconnect there
- that the CSI scores don't give
them the full picture. "
In other instances, service advisers become
the victims of customers with service expectations
that can never be met. Bratcher recalls
he once received a score of 75 , which prompted
a phone call to the customer to identify the
reason for the score.
" Th e customer said that everything was perReviewing
the reviews
In annual surveys of service managers and service advisers conducted by Carlisle &
Co. for automakers, some respondents sounded off on the value of CSI surveys.
Here's a sample of some anonymous comments.
 " I understand how important customer satisfaction is in this industry and I am not
denying how important our surveys and reviews are. It is just unfortunate that my
paycheck is not only based on my performance, but on everyone's performance in that
chain. "
 " If the technician left a drain plug loose, if we can't get a car washed because
sales took our service detailer to go on a dealer trade, if a service reminder isn't
reset, if a check-engine light comes back on because it wasn't repaired correctly, all
these factors can cost me money, which I don't believe is fair. This is one of many
reasons I seriously call in to question my longevity here. "
 " CSI surveys need to disappear. This industry will continue to lose good advisers
simply due to the survey. Keyboard warriors are killing the industry. Limit the survey to
three questions: Are you satisfi ed with the adviser, the dealership and the vehicle? If
the surveys don't change, advisers will become as hard to fi nd as technicians. The
game has changed - the industry needs to change with it. "
 " Take away being graded and paid on CSI. It is diffi cult when the manufacturer pays
the dealer to keep CSI up to a certain level. We understand the principle, but in real
life, with no parts supply and a lot of other factors that come into play, we make
decisions based on if we may get surveyed from this client or not. "
 " So much is reliant on the CSI that it is hard to keep people at any level, due to the
fact that a problem survey can cause an employee to leave, based on [lost] income. "
ment, " he says. " You get a comment like that
and you kind of want to explode. "
So if the CSI is antiquated and broken, what
might be used instead?
Bratcher says a mechanism for obtaining
customer feedback remains necessary.
" I'm afraid that if you take away the surveys,
you also take away that voice of the customers, "
he says.
As such, Bratcher says he would favor a system
that instead measures customer
retention, which is a more accurate
measure of how dealerships
serve customers.
Chambers agrees. " If you keep
getting repeat business over and
over and over, you're doing something
right, " he says. " And that's
very measurable. "
Some industry observers endorse
Chambers: Scores
not " the full picture "
the Net Promoter Score, which centers
on one primary question for
consumers: On a scale of 1 to 10,
how likely are they to recommend
Business X to a family member or friend?
Asking just one question greatly increases
response rates and the results are easily understood:
a score of 9 or 10 means the customers
are promoters; 7 to 8 makes them passive;
and grades of 0 through 6 makes them detractors.
Taking the percentage of promoters and
subtracting the percentage of detractors profect,
but that he never gives out perfect scores
because everyone has room for improveduces
a Net Promoter Score .
" I'm not a big fan, " Chambers says. " I understand
that it's short and easy to understand.
But you shouldn't be penalized for receiving
an 8 out of 10, which is a really good score -
but not according to the NPS. It's just another
number that can be manipulated. "
Viable alternatives
Johnson agrees, noting that viable alternatives
to gauging customer satisfaction exist.
For example, many industries use a sales metric
called share-of-wallet, which is an average
of how much a consumer spends on a particular
company's products or services compared
with how much they spend on competitors'
products or services, she says.
" It's a better metric because it's behavior-based,
not sentiment-based, " Johnson says.
She also suggests " mystery shopping " in
which anonymous third-party shoppers pose
as customers to determine dealerships' level
of service. Reviews on social media platforms
such as Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Google and
automaker websites also could be used.
" We don't advocate elimination of CSI
scores, " she says. " But we do think there are
more viable and more accurate ways to measure
the customer experience.
" Th e CSI also could be improved by altering
the questions and removing any ties to pay
plans, which creates bad behavior and frustrations, "
she says. " Even if OEMs start using
other methods, I think the CSI survey will remain
around for some time. It's not going to
go away tomorrow. " 
AUGUST 2022 PAGE 21

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