"Tim (Fractal Footwork)" (fractalfootwork)
09/23/2020 at 18:38 • Filed to: Rant
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"Tim (Fractal Footwork)" (fractalfootwork)
09/23/2020 at 18:38 • Filed to: Rant | 4
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I
’m sure profusely
asking your customers to give you 5-star ratings on every single thing after you hand them over the keys to the new car they just bought
otherwise you “won’t get [your]
bonus for this month” won’t corrupt the data at all; noooo sir, nothing wrong with this situation.
T his 100% didn’t happen when I bought my BMW, but both times I bought cars from lesser brands (Hyundai and Chevy) the salesman droned on-and-on about it.
I get that it might be a tactic for management to make sure their salesmen are working 100% to their abilities in satisfying the customer, but how would you ever really know since the data is corrupt?
And stop emailing me to fill out your stupid survey 5x a day even after I unsubscribed from your mailing list!
End Rant.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
In other news, I’m loving my truck so far. And so does my dog!
Haven’t technically taken it “offroad” yet, but that might change this weekend or at least will be taking through some gravel roads.
I’ve moved some stuff with it already (TRUCK THINGS!), but the shorter bed compared with my old extended cab Colorado is noticeable.
I was expecting it to be more practical than a car, but I didn’t realize until yesterday that there’s no trunk with a truck. Nowhere to keep stuff out of sight, out of the rain. A to nneau cover might crawl back some of this practicality, but not completely.
onlytwowheels
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
09/23/2020 at 18:53 |
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Back in the 80's, I went to a Mazda dealer with the sister of my best friend. She had been shopping for a new 626, and the previous dealer she had been to was not giving her what she wanted for her trade. So, after a brief discussion of her cars value, we went in and found a salesman. He went back and forth over the numbers and finally agreed to the trade value on one condition, she write a letter of recommendation to the general manger for him. She agreed and the deal was done. The next time she went to this dealership, her salesman was now sales manager.
Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
09/23/2020 at 18:57 |
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ON A SCALE OF ONE TO TEN HOW LIKELY ARE YOU TO RECOMMEND US TO A FRIEND OF COLLEAGUE?
Manny05x
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
09/23/2020 at 19:02 |
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I worked at a dealer if the service advisors survey was less than excellent its considering failing. Whats unfair to them that even if the customer had a bad experience in the waiting room it goes against them.
nermal
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
09/23/2020 at 19:50 |
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You’ve identified the key problem with consumer surveys. They are sold to upper management as a tool to mea sure and improve customer service, and eventually increase profitability. In reality they merely measure how well front line employees can convince customers to give all 5 star reviews.
They only work for the intended purpose if front line employees are neither paid or punished for the results. Never gonna happen in a dealership though.
Brickman
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
09/23/2020 at 20:08 |
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I have the Retrax Pro MX aluminum rolling tonneau cover. It’s expensive , but locking, waterproof, and tough.
https://retrax.com/retraxpro-mx/2020/chevrolet/colorado
50ford500
> nermal
09/23/2020 at 20:15 |
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Or anywhere for that matter. My industry we are graded on,our surveys monthly. What’s funny is it is tied to their entire experience which typically involves at least 3-4 people. And it gets better because the sliding scale of how the score affects you is laughably harsh on the employee as in only a 5 star is positive and anything from I think 2-4 stars counts as a zero but get a 1 star and it’s an automatic negative 100 on your averages.
HammerheadFistpunch
> nermal
09/23/2020 at 20:28 |
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compensation incentivization is suddenly becoming very interesting to me. I feel like there are a lot of assumptions about how it should work that...don’t.
Boredskater
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
09/23/2020 at 21:00 |
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Active service technician here. Dealer surveys determine metrics that effect everything, in ways far more complicated than “let us know how you enjoyed your visit”. Ways that are wholly unfair, and negate the very usefulness as the data set they’re intended to be.
Everyone is woefully underpaid, front of house to back, and depending on how the dealership decides to ‘incentivize’ its employees, these can be the difference between somebody getting that bonus that should already be in their pay. Somebody getting fired. Some customer getting free stuff, and coming back frequently to complain, knowing they will get free stuff just to shut them up.
In theory, not the worst idea. If you have lots of unhappy customers, you are not good at your job, your situation should be re-evaluated.
Unfortunately, the theory is not the reality. These surveys are generally expected to be maintained in the top 90%, anything less is considered failure. It only takes a few no star or zero percent to decimate an entire months worth of hard work and happy customers on paper. Someone so unhappy with the experience to give low reviews, should be understood, looked into. But they are more often not put into context.
Quite often, the poor review has nothing to do with the service. My circumstances might be unusual at a small regional but overboard in amenities for the area highline store , but the dealership frequently sees customers complaining solely that the free snacks in the waiting room were of a subpar selection. That the free car wash they’ve come to expect was not a full detail, despite pulling in with a hoarder mobile that would make you choke to sit in, let alone work in or clean up. On and on. Things the dealership has admittedly gotten the customers set up to expect, but many people’s expectations are ludicrous and have nothing to do with having your car serviced or repaired.
I’ve been on the other side as well, as my mother purchased a maintenance plan despite my advice at another dealer, and after they had actually botched a diagnosis, a repair after correct diagnosis that was exactly what i had aready told them what was wrong, and failed to reset the TPMS tire warning system on someone who is elderly and drives 60 miles alone through the bfe woods, found that they had intentionally changed her email in the system to one that would only go to an employee to always give 5 stars, and under the exact circumstances that a terrible visit should have been brought to the attention of people who could make changes towards improvement.
The entire system is annoying to customers. Is an excuse to simply not pay good employees what they’re actually worth in the first place, so the dealer wouldn’t have to be constantly concerned if a good job was done. And gives information that is actually of no use to even the dealership itself. The only people who gain are the companies selling the systems to keep track of crazy angry people who would have been angry no matter what happened. Who else generally is gonna waste the time out of their day to answer these things?
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nermal
> HammerheadFistpunch
09/23/2020 at 21:03 |
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It’s even more interesting when you realize that there is intentional disconnect. Things like over-budgeting sales quotas. If you want $1M in sales, assign $1.3M in quota to your sales guys, expecting the majority of them to miss target.
Also, it’s in your best interest to change jobs every few years. Even if you move to a different company doing the same thing, you’re likely to increase your salary much faster than staying at the same place. Same concept as insurance, loyalty is punished financially.
subexpression
> Tim (Fractal Footwork)
09/23/2020 at 21:26 |
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Reviews have turned in to a shitty game. It’s not just the auto industry. Fo r several years now I’ve had people apologizing to me as they explained that anything less than a 5-star (or whatever) review is treated as a failing grade by their management.
The trunk thing is a perfect example of why the Honda Ridgeline is a great truck for people who almost never need a truck. It has a “trunk” under the back part of the bed, in the space where a normal truck puts a big spare tire (it has a donut on a shelf in the trunk instead ). But if you really need a truck, well, the Ridgeline is kind of shitty because it is to pickups what FWD-car- based crossovers are to off-road-ready SUVs - fr ont-drive with a PTO off the transaxle for the rear axle, structure you’d expect to find in a station wagon (if we still had those in the US) , buttons for the AWD that don’t do what the label says they do, etc .
Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
> Manny05x
09/23/2020 at 22:40 |
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That’s among the reasons I don’t fill out any surveys — even for my own employer regarding internal matters. Imagine losing your job or bonus because someone was upset that the First Impressions Specialist didn’t unzip their pants on the way in.
hedbutter
> Brickman
09/23/2020 at 22:57 |
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I second rolling hard covers. I need to adjust mine a bit to get it 100% water tight, but it would be hard to get into it without making too much noise and locks with the tailgate (Jeep Gladiator) .
newnamesameme
> nermal
09/24/2020 at 00:06 |
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Your last paragraph is very astute. Well put.