A few months ago, I wrote a blog on CSI, or “Customer Satisfaction Index,” and it generated a fair amount of criticism from a few readers. I guess it’s my fault, because I didn’t fully explain how the system works.
No salesman is opposed to being graded on his or her performance. And I would never expect a customer to lie for me, or cover up a poor performance on my part. But I do expect the results to be accurate and fair, and the way CSI surveys are scored that’s virtually impossible.
What you have to understand is, while a CSI survey may give you a scale from one to ten, in actuality it’s a binary equation with only two scores: “1” or “0.” “On” or “off.” “A” or “F.” In the eyes of the manufacturer, there is no such thing as a “B,” or “passing” grade. You’re either “Perfect” or you flunk — completely. When you give your salesperson an 8 or a 9, thinking that’s a good score, it’s an absolute lock he’ll be getting an ass chewing from his manager later on, asking him why he got such a lousy survey. Try to understand this and only give your salesperson an 8 or a 9 if you really hate them and want them to suffer when the results come in — because that’s what will happen. Trust me.
But… I didn’t write this week’s blog to rehash an old one. What I wanted to talk about today is the real problem with CSI, which is how dealerships deal with bad scores internally, and how that needs to be changed if CSI is to mean anything.
The biggest problem with CSI isn’t that the surveys are unfair to the salesperson, although I believe they are. The biggest problem is, they don’t measure what they’re supposed to measure, and they don’t produce real change. CSI is meant to measure customer satisfaction. But in reality all it measures is the ability of the dealership to coach its customers .
Anyone in the car business knows exactly what I’m talking about. But for those of you who aren’t, what I mean is this. Nearly every dealership on the planet devotes 99% of its time and energy to drilling its sales staff on the importance of coaching the customers to answer the survey “properly” so the dealer gets good scores — and absolutely ZERO time and energy actually trying to improve the things that customers complain about.
For example, if the surveys show it’s taking too long for customers to get in and out of Finance, you might think management would start looking at ways to cut down the amount of time it takes for customers to get in and out of Finance, right? Or if the surveys show that a lot of cars are being delivered with chips or scratches in the paint, you’d think somebody would want to fix it so that doesn’t happen, right?
Wrong.
Management’s typical response to bad surveys — for any reason — is to stand up in the next sales meeting and yell and scream at the salespeople for not coaching the customers, and threaten everybody with pay cuts, or their jobs. “Tell your customers ‘All tens and yeses!’” they bellow. And then they’ll give you a script for you to memorize, telling you precisely what to say to your customers, right down to the specific words to use. After the meeting, the salesmen all go out and diligently repeat what they’ve been told to say, begging their customers to “Please be sure to give me all tens and yeses on the survey!” And most folks, not wanting to hurt anybody, will give the poor guy tens and yeses — even when their car had a scratch on it, or it took four hours to get in and out of Finance on a cash deal.
As the scores gradually go back up, the managers will lean back in their chairs and think “We’ve got this CSI problem licked!” But the real problem hasn’t been touched. It was never even addressed.
In all the time I’ve been in sales — which is over eight years now — I’ve only known one sales manager who actually had the guts to stand before a group of salespeople and ask the following questions out loud:
“What are we doing wrong? Why are our scores so low? What can we do to improve them?”
You would think these three questions would be the first things out of any sales manager’s mouth. But sadly, they’re often never asked at all.
Unfortunately, it seems that some of the folks who run dealerships are only interested in making a buck, and as they see it, the manufacturers have constructed a huge obstacle to making money square in their path: the CSI survey. So, human nature being what it is… what do you do when you encounter an obstacle? You find a way around it.
The easiest way is to bribe the customer. The first dealership I ever worked at offered its customers a free fill-up if they brought in their surveys and let us fill them out for them. Then the manufacturer found out and said “You can’t do that anymore.” At another dealership, the customer’s actual e-mail address was removed from the deal and a phony e-mail address would be substituted. The manufacturer would send out its survey to John Doe, Customer… and the survey would be answered by an employee of the dealership, who naturally gave us all tens and yeses. If those tricks fail, what do you do? Simple. You train your sales staff to train their customers.
This is all CSI measures today: how well the organ grinder has trained his monkeys. And it’s amazing to me that manufacturers haven’t figured this out yet. Attention, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan, etc.: your dealerships are gaming the system. They’re skewing the results — consciously and deliberately — by browbeating the sales force and guilting customers into telling you what you want to hear — regardless of the truth.
If manufacturers really want to know how their customers are being treated, four things need to happen:
- Don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. (Especially not the dealers.)
- Send out surveys randomly, and in secret.
- Don’t tie them to one individual at the dealership — unless that individual has authority over everyone else.
- And above all else… no matter what you do… don’t punish anyone for the truth.
Remove the financial penalty — especially on the low guy on the totem pole, the salesman — and let the customers speak. Then, and only then, will manufacturers get the truth they need to improve the customer experience.
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