| Dog |
I recently had my '05 MDX in for a couple of minor service issues. I got a call from the dealership a couple of days later to do a customer satisfaction survey on my experiences. The lady doing the survey told me that if I answered "Excellent" for each of the categories I would get a coupon for a free oil change.
When I pointed out to her that it wasn't a very effective method of market research for the dealership to bribe people to give the best answers, she replied that this is an "Acura program" not a dealership thing. I doubt the truth behind this comment, and still remain flabbergasted that the dealerships/Acura conduct themselves in this way. Really, don't they have any shame? |
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| anjan |
| Yeah, and pigs fly. Never had that offer from my dealer. I'm sure if Acura was offering the free oil change, everyone will get it. I do get a 10% off coupon for next service/purchase but that's given at the time of purchase, not based on survey answers. |
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| cycler15 |
| The sales manager where I bought my X was very pushy in telling me that if I got a phone call from Acura inquiring about the service, I should give them all "excellent" marks. He was a really nice guy, just kinda pushy about that. |
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| Dr. Ken |
| I have gotten survey forms from a Honda dealer after a service call in which it says that if I can't answer excellent to every question, then talk to them about it. Well, the entire survey was yes/no with no place to mark excellent or otherwise. When I told them about it, they said that it wasn't even their form, so they couldn't change it. Basically, they did not care. So what should I think of them and their service? |
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| Dog |
quote:
Originally posted by JL_SS
Satisfaction Survey Bribery Forum
A whole forum dedicated to this issue?!? Now I REALLY am flabbergasted. I'm surprised this type of activity hasn't attracted the attention of some enterprising state attorney general...:eek: |
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| Sinecure |
| You know, I could live with the service rep and the stupid women who take your money asking me: "was there anything about this service visit that would cause you to rate us less than 'excellent' if asked by an Acura respresentative?" That's a legit question and one I think they should ask every customer. However, the pushy plea to rate them excellent without regard to how you actually feel about the service really bugs me. It is one of the reasons I don't go to the dealer for service any more. |
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| JL_SS |
quote:
Originally posted by Dog
I'm surprised this type of activity hasn't attracted the attention of some enterprising state attorney general...:eek:
Why? It's only an internal incentive method........ |
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| Dog |
quote:
Originally posted by JL_SS
Why? It's only an internal incentive method........
When the dealers advertise their "Award winning service departments", post the awards around their showrooms, and try to convince buyers to buy a car from them because of their great service, isn't that deceptive if the "awards" are based on data which has been heavily manipulated by the dealer? |
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| JL_SS |
quote:
Originally posted by Dog
When the dealers advertise their "Award winning service departments", post the awards around their showrooms, and try to convince buyers to buy a car from them because of their great service, isn't that deceptive if the "awards" are based on data which has been heavily manipulated by the dealer?
Only if you believe them, like any advertising............:p . In general you buy from the cheapest, then you start trying sevice depts until you find a good one. Recommendations from friends mean a lot more to me than any self-hype a dealer advertises regarding service. If I run into crappy service, I don't hesitate to fill out the survey reflecting that regardless of any incentive. |
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| hondacuraworld |
It just goes to show you how meaningless the JD Powers surveys really are. When I worked at Jaguar, they earned #1 not by the quality of the vehicles, but by the same basic tactics. I don't know how many $200 Steiff stuffed Jaguars we gave away to customers that had serious issues with their new cars.
I do admit that I liked the Jag owners a lot, and they liked us because they knew that they'd be in to our dealership all the time because something would break or fail more often than they'd have first tee. We got to know them quite well, because we saw them about once a week :) |
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| carguy1234 |
I remember the experience with my first new vehicle - a Ford F150.
They gave me a completely filled out satisfaction form, with all 10's checked for everything, and said "Just sign this". They were pretty much telling me, not asking me!
The weird thing is that I've never really been contacted by Acura about satisfaction after the purchase of my MDX. Is that unusual? It's been a couple months now. |
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| JL_SS |
quote:
Originally posted by carguy1234
I remember the experience with my first new vehicle - a Ford F150.
They gave me a completely filled out satisfaction form, with all 10's checked for everything, and said "Just sign this". They were pretty much telling me, not asking me!
The weird thing is that I've never really been contacted by Acura about satisfaction after the purchase of my MDX. Is that unusual? It's been a couple months now.
It is not unusual for Acura, they seem to random sample. The dealer should have contacted you though. |
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| wing2299 |
| A friend of mine purchased a Honda and the saleslady asked him to bring her the survey form that he would receive in the mail in exchange of a free oilchange coupon. |
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| mdxx3 |
Actually, I think some dealers do all this anyways. No big surprise here. Usually ends up being a form of negotiation. But I don't like the part where they say to bring it in and they fill it up for the customer - that part sounds silly.
The Acura dealer didn't tell me about these ratings when we bought it. So they obviously didn't get perfect score when the survey came (but ranked pretty high anyways). They should have told me about it and I would have ask them for a couple of polo shirts and a stainless steel coffee mug for these 5/perfect stars (I'm easy:)).
Anyways, I had a similar agreement with the Bimmer dealer. He gave me floor mats, etc and I gave him 5 stars when they sent the survey form and called. That guy deserves the top rating anyways - never met any sales person this nice or fun before. The guy even gave us lunch for goodness sake!! It turns out they have a cafeteria there and have a cook on staff too. Ok, he held us hostage there until we signed for the car - else he probably thought we won't come back after lunch. What an expensive lunch. Nevertheless it was a fun experience. That man even stood there in the service/prep dept and b!tched at the workers to get every waterspot out! And then he even took a cloth and did some detail stuff himself too. Later described every button/feature of the SAV, and also connected/set-up the concierge and SOS thing. So when the survey came, the sales person and dealership of course got 5 (perfect) stars/yesses. |
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