Increasing Dealership CSI in 30 Days

With dealer incentive money playing a crucial role and providing much needed revenue to dealerships during this economic downturn it is imperative to increase and then maintain your Customer Satisfaction Index.

One way to perform this function relatively quickly is to TARGET your dealership response rate directly at the source, "Your customers". It is imperative to collect and capture as many customer emails as possible within both the sales and service departments. You will still always have those customers who you will never truly be able to please no matter what you do, expectation levels are different with each and every customer, yet you can control the amount of positive surveys that are filled in and returned to your manufacturer.

I DO NOT provide ways to cheat the system nor do I advocate this type of behavior, what I do incite is the need to have your BDC contact customers on a daily ON GOING basis. The customers you want to call are the ones that you know you gave an exceptional purchase or service experience to and will willingly fill in the survey and return it to your manufacturer.

Here is how it is done:

1. Create a spread sheet in excel for the sales department and create one for the service department. This sheet should be designed as follows;

Customer Name - Vehicle – Contact Tel – Contact Email – RO or Deal # - Contact Yes / No

The sales and service consultants MUST fill this sheet out for each customer in which they know the customer received an exceptional customer service experience. Each morning the dealership BDC retrieves the individual lists and calls the customers with the following script;

2. Good (morning, afternoon or evening) my name is ___________, I am calling from (Name of Dealership), is now a good time to talk? Wait for answer. (If not) What is a good time to call back? ______ Great, the reason for this call is to remind you that (Name of Manufacturer) will be sending you the CSI questionnaire by email, this survey is our report card to (name of manufacturer) of our level of service and commitment to quality we have to our valued customers, may we count on your support to fill in the questionnaire and return it to the (Name of Manufacturer)? Wait for answer. If the answer is no, ask “May I inquire if there are any unresolved issues at this time”? Wait for answer. If the answer is yes, write the concern down and inform the customer that the appropriate manager will contact them shortly. If the answer was yes and they will fill out the questionnaire and return it to the manufacturer, the BDC dealership representative MUST state;

On behalf of our dealership we thank you for your support and look forward to providing you with exceptional customer experiences in the future. Thank you for choosing (Name of dealership) and have a wonderful day.

If you do this religiously for thirty days I guaranty that your CSI scores will be MUCH higher than they are today. Once you start this program make sure you maintain the process to stay ahead of your competition. Once your employees start seeing the CSI level rise they will as well be committed to the process and more aware of WHAT it takes to continue to provide outstanding exceptional service experiences to ALL customers.

David