My car dealer wants to know how my service appointment went - over and over and over again

The BBQ Pit
1

I bought a new car back in February (a Kia Forte, if you’re interested). Last week, I took it to the dealer’s service department for the first oil change and a minor warranty issue. Everything went normally.

Starting on Wednesday, I began to get calls from various people associated with the dealer, asking me about how my experience went. First, it was a call from the service manager. Then, a recorded message from the owner’s wife (!) thanking me for choosing them for service. Then, another followup call from some unknown manager type. Then, a call (not recorded) from the owner making sure I was satisfied. Finally, I got a computerized call asking me to rate the service on a 1-5 scale. All of these calls came to my cell phone - they also left messages at home before calling me on the cell!

Enough already! One call, maybe two, was fine. This is like being stalked, or like going to a restaurant and having the waiter ask you how the food is, over and over! If they call again, I am telling them that I am seriously considering not returning to the service department because I don’t want the incessant followup calls.

Seriously, has anyone ever had any company keep doing this?

2

I had the same experience when I bought my new car. I took it in for oil changes, because they were free at the dealership for the first few years. Every time, I got bombarded with calls a week later. I always gave the same answer: “My experience was just fine, except for these annoying phone calls. I hate those.” And really, what do they expect to learn from me? I went in with old oil, I came out with new oil. What kind of response am I supposed to have to that?

3

I had a similar experience. I got down right nasty after the second or third inquiry, telling them I would take my business to someone who wasn’t such a PIA.

4

nm

5

I have a Toyota and I get these types of calls incessantly. I don’t find them annoying when the service center screws up and I get to bitch about them to three different people, though.

6

That would drive me nuts. One call is more than enough - if you didn’t hear from me, everything was fine. Leave me alone.

7

I actually like the calls. That’s because I have a lifted jeep with a transmission skid plate and the service techs never clean the oil off the skid plate. Everytime I bring my jeep in for the free oil change, they promise to use a powerwasher to clean the oil off my skid plate. They never do. I’ve learned to look and then send it back, and waste an hour waiting for them to do their job right.

Yes, my jeep is a pain for them to deal with, but that’s not my problem. If they ever do manage to do it right the first time, I’ll sing their praises for every call. As it is, I don’t scream and swear about the problem. I just tell them that I’m not happy because I don’t like walking up to my jeep and can see oil dripping without bending over. I also tell them that I’d never recommend their service department because if they can’t get a simple thing like cleaning up the mess off a skid plate right, could they be trusted to do major repairs.

Its been 5 years and everytime I go to pick my jeep up its dripping oil off the skid plate. I love complaining, so I welcome their calls. Oddly enough, I can’t remember the last time I got a call or one of those cards to fill out.

Now, I use a JiffyLube for my econocar. I love them. They get me in and out very quickly, they point out problems but don’t try to hard sell me and they even vaccum my car and clean the windshield. When I get their customer satisfaction cards I always fill them out with good comments.

8

If your oil change experience wasn’t orgasmic, then they’re not doing as well as they could be.

9

And here I thought the Jiffy Lube guys were looking at my name badge, not trying to find a good way to improve their service!!!

10

too late to edit, but my jeep is armor plated, I meant to say that I’ve got an oil pan skid plate.

11

We actually changed dealers. I wrote a nastygram to the Head Honcho, cc to the company, explaining that we got called every single time we had something serviced, even though I had asked them to remove our phone number from their records. Never got a reply, but we found a dealer who was willing to leave us alone after we had an oil change or whatever.

12

I got so tired of Jeep doing it that I just changed my phone # in the system and tell them I’m at a friend’s house or something so here’s my “temporary” number.

I do miss Saturn dealerships, though. Any service - be it oil change or another alternator replacement - meant that they’s also top off the windshield wiper fluid, analyze the radiator fluid for oil in the antifreeze & the right amount of antifreeze, vacuum the car and even put it through the car wash. Despite it being an economy car, they really went the extra mile, which is why I even brought my 1st Jeep there for oil changes. PLUS - no phone calls.

13

Wrong kind of lube servicing!

14

Rough neighborhood?

15

Get used to it. These ridiculous calls are the newest and greatest in the long line of executive techniques that only serve to piss people off.

See, the final call, the one where some outside agency asked you to rate your service, that’s where it starts.

One day, some over-payed, under-worked, useless-and-would-be-fired-if-he-wasn’t-the-boss’s-nephew exec got the idea that the best way to improve the bottom line is to improve customer satisfaction. In and of itself, not a bad idea. The problem is that in order to know that you’re improving customer satisfaction, you need have some sort of measure of what that satisfaction level is. So, rather than spend money on things that would improve the customer’s experience, they decide to spend money on some consultants, who convince the powers that (shouldn’t) be to use surveys to rate the customers’ experiences.

Now, once the surveys start, the bosses can’t well admit (no matter how badly the numbers are presented or how little they actually mean from a statistical point of view) that they’ve wasted this money, so the consultants are happy to provide (for a fee, of course) wonderful ways to help boost scores (without, you know, spending the money the company just gave up on useful improvements). These are things like signs that say “We strive for 5!” or “10 is our only passing score” (both real examples I’ve seen) or what have you.

As the idiots who run the show get deeper and deeper into the monetary outlays, they suddenly notice the scripts the consultants put together to have employees call customers. These calls, of course, have the veneer of caring about you and your experience: “I’m just calling to follow up with you…” “I just wanted to touch base and make sure everything was excellent…” etc. Somehow, though, they always get back around to to the point of begging for high scores.

The kicker, of course, is that there are plenty of people who just get pissed about being constantly bothered by these inane calls and emails. Well, that’s the kicker from the customers’ perspective. The kicker from the employees’ perspective is that these surveys, since they cost so much, are now tied into payday…despite the fact that they may well be about things the employees have absolutely no control over.

(What, me bitter? No, it couldn’t be…Fuck you, Press Ganey!)

16

And the irony of begging for high scores and being whores to their monthly execution metrics, they in no way have a real representation of their customer service. Instead, they have scores they have begged for.

17

Isn’t it funny that most people would find high customer satisfaction in getting whatever it is they want from a business, then just being left alone?

18

We’re get the same canned bullshit in our line of work.

“Following up with the customer is important to customer satisfaction”

OH FUCK THAT NOISE.

Very very few people actually want to be called a week later to make sure they were happy with their service, and almost no one in the service business wants to waste their time making these followup calls only to have the customer throw more questions, issues or complaints at them.

Must be the latest hot button coming out of the customer service consultant playbook these days. “This month we’re selling them all on the importance of followup!”

19

The last time I was at my dealership (Hyundai) I was pulled aside by the service manager and told that I’d receive a survey in the mail (I believe that they’re JD Power) asking about my service experience and that they want all 10s, so if there was anything about the experience that wasn’t a 10, I should have them fix it before I leave so that I can give a full 10 on every question of the survey.

So of course I think everything’s okay, get the survey within 2 days, fill it out, send it back and within a week of my visit the thing they’re meant to have fixed isn’t working again. So much for those 10s.

20

The dealers arent always exactly happy about having to make these phone calls either.

In my previous job, we were told that as part of our CSS results, we had to contact all recent customers and ask them some listed questions. It wasnt some consultancy company making the phone calls, it was us poor clowns in service, as if we didnt have enough to be doing. We would make the calls, while some other office would randomly contact the same people to check if we were actually making the calls.

Now, we were a commercial dealership, dealing with a lot of large fleets rather than individual customers such as a car dealership would get. This means that the people actually bringing the trucks into the garage were just drivers, while the pool of owners was actually quite small.

But anyway, we have phone calls to make. Except I never made a single phone call. They were all made by our very attractive receptionist, who had been with the company since she had left school and was extremely popular with drivers and owners alike.

“Hey Gary, its Tits McGee* here, how you keeping? *…ten minutes of small talk…*Actually Gary, we have to do these survey things, can I ask you a few of these bloody questions…”

There may have been customers who had problems needed sorted, but they sure as hell werent going to bitch to young Arlene about them, and of course our scores looked brilliant. What a waste of time.
*You should hear what she called me…