Customer surveys

Back in 1993 we bought a Camry (still have it, by the way). My wife completed the survey, it came to her as the car was in her name. She returned it with some less than 100% comments, as she felt were correct. I do remember the salesman even way back then talking about can we grade them all 100%, etc.

Anyway a few days later he called me up and literally SCREAMED at me. Same thing as someone else mentioned about losing money, etc.

All these years later I'm still on his mailing lists for birthday cards and special offers and stuff like that.

I just took delivery of a new Prius on April 9th. Came with a dent and a used spare tire (both since have been fixed/replaced by the dealer). Do they really think I'll be giving them 100%'s?

I've never received a response from their VP - she sent me a form letter thanking me for my business etc., let her know if I'm less than satisfied with anything (I posted about this before). Wrote a 2-page letter with details, faxed it to her, called her and spoke with her and let her know I faxed it, asked her to call me back after she got it so we could discuss. Nothing. Stopped at the dealer late in the day, asked to speak with her, she wasn't there, left a message with the receptionist. No response yet (that was on 4/20).

 

Does everyone get these surveys? I bought my car last August and did not get one.

 

I bought mine in late August and received the email with the survey the following week. So, I am not sure how Toyota does this or determines who gets one and who does not.

I was told by the salesman that I would be receiving the email with the survey and how badly he needed all of the ratings to be excellent. In my case, he earned the excellent ratings.

 

They're distributed by random sample.

 

If that is the case, how did my saleman know ahead of time that I would be receiving the survey?

 

It would not surprise me if you don't get a survey for this recent purchase. I think they are not sent to customers who obviously had issues during their transactions.

 

Two words: Grade inflation.

There is no "right" to be "perfect"--you must earn it. The OP is under no moral obligation to boost this guy's self esteem, let alone his bonus. *You* are giving them your hard-earned money for a product, and they demand a bonus on top? Ridiculous. If Toyota (and they're not alone) sets up a customer survey, they presumably want honest answers, and if not, well, they've laid their own trap. If they're good, I'll say so; if not, I won't. If all they want is a pre-ordained platinum trophy cup, I'm not going to spend a milligram of my effort in furthering that. Yeesh. What arrogance.

 

Not true. After I completed the one mostly about the dealer (I was in no hurry) I got another e-mail for another survey. I thought it was a duplicate but it was a more generic survey about the car. I call it generic because there were a number of things that didn't apply. It takes either a lot of backbone or no brains to send a Customer SATISFACTION Survey to the owner who just had an unsuccessful warranty trip. I am proud to say that I ran out of space voicing my opinion regarding the car's shortcomings.

I believe these surveys should be completed fairly. If your transaction went well & you are satisfied then say so. If you believe you were screwed over or dissatisfied & complaining to the dealership's head office didn't help then say so.

If we do complain things may improve. If we don't things won't improve.

 

The dealership where I bought my 2010 did mention the survey -- the salesman did and the finance guy did. They didn't push it hard, but did say the results were very important to them.

From my experience, they deserved excellent across the board, and that's what I gave them.

That begs another issue, however. If someone (Toyota) is grading performance on the basis that anything less than perfection makes one a loser, then I would be more generous in completing the survey unless I wanted my reply to ding the dealership etc.

Some years ago, I was a part-time teacher at a parochial high school. In the first spring semester, Monsignor stopped by to tell me that the English teacher (250 year-old nun ...) had decided to punish the guys who were just trying to graduate and weren't going on to college. So, she marked them all as D-. He commented that he knew those grades weren't correct, and that what she was really doing was to lower their averages so they couldn't play on the school's championship baseball team that spring. That's all he said. I checked around, and a few other nuns confirmed that's what took place. Let's just say that my grading curve ran high that semester. Oh yeah, and the baseball team won their league.

 

Looking back at the survey (I kept an electronic copy), there was one question which I took to be a sort of trick question.

Question 8. asked "At any point during or after the purchase/lease process, did you ask [dealer] to resolve any concerns?
__ No
__ Yes
|___ If yes, how would you rate the following?
(continues with stuff about their reaction & fix)

It occurred to me that if you said "yes" then you thereby said they did leave some conerns open which you had to come back on. So, a well-meaning "yes" could be a problem, depending on how Toyota treats that Q&A.

For me, there weren't any issues to resolve, so I could answer that "no" I didn't have to ask them to resolve any concerns.

 

Giving everyone excellant is like a school giving everyone all "A's" except for the ones who dropout. This makes no sense. Customers should, when surveyed, give honest answers. If everything was OK, they should get a Good or whatever the second highest rating is. IMO, excellant should be reserved for someone who goes above and beyond...i.e. no room for improvement.

If the survey is intended to determine all excellant or not, then it should just have two choices, "Excellant" and "Not excellant." Otherwise the surveyors, customers and salespeople are all just kidding ourselves.
YMMV

3PriusMike

 

Most people don't give you their honest opinion. I figure if I give honest feedback, I'm doing the supplier a great service.

If someone apologizes to you once, you appreciate it, if they apologize twice, you're like, ok.., three times, and you start thinking they are a sleeze.

I put in my survey that my salesperson set a record for apologizing.

I've seen guys like that get let go from where I work. I gave Toyota a zero for integrity. Hopefully they will use the feedback to improve.

No call, what's the guy going to do? Apologize?

 

I got the survey from Toyota as well, with the sales staff begging for a perfect rating. However, I had the same thing happen at Harley-Davidson when I bought my new 2010. They all said that the survey was very important and to please rate them perfectly.

 

My finance guy basically said that Toyota has high expectations of their dealerships and people. He asked me to please come to him with any issues or concerns so he could personally rectify any problems rather than put them down in the survey. He wanted me to know that everyone at the dealership takes customer satisfaction very seriously. They are very committed at my dealership and they definitely mean it.

I think the median of the surveys Toyota does receive cannot be lower than 93%. Thus, the fewer the surveys the larger the impact of negative surveys.

My dealership and everyone there went above and beyond the call of duty and continue to do so. They will be getting 100% from me and did so in the short phone survey I did tonight (2 days after purchase).

 

I'm envious of your experience with your dealer. Mine stinks. Finance guy didn't return my phone call when I called about a problem. Same with the VP. Basically went with them since there price was about $300 less than the dealer who we got our '04 Prius from, and have had good experiences with. Lesson learned there.

 

It seems they try oh so hard to get that 100% rating when they are selling you something. After the fact, especially in service, sometimes the attitude seems to be "the h*ll with you, I have you over a barrel." This is of course not true in all cases. I went to what seemed like the end of the earth to find a dealership who would do the brake recall at the same time as repair the cargo net (I got an early build). All but one service department said they'd have to "inspect" the car for the cargo net damage before they ordered the kit, and I'd have to make two trips. This despite my emailing the TSB (which clearly states that the cargo net issue is covered under warranty) and even offering to send pics of the gaping chasms between the two plastic panels. No dice, except for one dealership, who was happy to do it at one visit as well as provide a loaner. They are a bit out of my way, and they're not the cheapest, but, barring any future problems, they have my business as long as I need a dealership for anything.

As a somewhat humorous aside, it is interesting how testy they can get when you present them with a TSB--"How did *you* get *that*?"--as if I stole the stole the secret formula for Coca Cola or something. I always just say the Internet is a wonderful tool...

~T

 

This reminds me of my cabin steward on a recent cruise begging for an all excellent response to their survey.
I felt that he gave good service, but not perfect. However, it seems that anything less than all perfect would hurt his chances of getting his contract renewed, hence I gave him a perfect score.

Toyota must have copied the cruise lines in their use of surveys...

Either way, I agree that this survey is useless.

 

Here's my experience with the dealership/salesman.

The first wanted to screw me on my trade-in; offered 1/2 the vehicles value (according to kbb). We worked out a deal which I thought was decent. During the finance, and other small talk, we walk out to take ownership and the salesman tells me
"oh, there's a small paint chip on the rear bumper. Don't worry, we'll take care of that."

Which after 3 trips to their service department, they got it right. First visit, the salesman didn't schedule with the bodyshop. Second trip, had to leave the car there to get it done again because the paint job was sloppy. On the third trip, I was finally able to pick up the car.

Here's what really upsets me. I'm buying a new car because I don't want to deal with these issues. They should tell you, before you sign, that the car might need some work (I say this because the salesman gave the impression that we knew of the paint problem).

How could you possibly rate "excellent" if you feel you got screwed. I gave them low ratings.

On a separate note: I love the car and I'm happy I got it; just not happy with the dealership.

 

One suggestion. Caveat emptor.

I always carefully inspect a car before I sign anything, and a few years ago I noticed a dent in the front bumper of a car I was about to buy, and of course the sales guy says don't worry, we'll take care of it. I told them to find me another car because I'm not buying a new car that's damaged. They had another nearly identical car in stock, that had no damage, which I bought.