On July 15, 2024, Sula bought a new family Van. A Super Custom 3500. To celebrate, he planned to take it on a road trip the next weekend to Ibanda with his wife and children.
Then, a few days after he drove it to the lot, the survey shakedown began. The dealership texted him on July 20 asking for a rating from 0 to 10 on the “overall buying experience.” He texted back a 9.
On July 21, Brenda—a customer care assistant—emailed him, asking, “Is there anything that we could have done better?” The next day, a Friday, she sent another email, wondering, “How could we have made your experience more pleasant?” The next Monday, undeterred by his nonresponse, she sent a third email: “There is just one thing that we would like to know. How could your purchasing experience have been better?”
That same Monday, another person from the dealership, Megan, texted him to see whether he needed anything. And his salesperson texted, too:
On Wednesday, the dealership texted him again, stating “our team would really appreciate your positive responses.”
Sula could sympathize with the dealership’s desire for feedback, because at the time he was in charge of customer experience for a health care software. He, too, had to keep tabs on customer satisfaction. He could relate. So, he took the time to fill out the survey. Gave some high scores, and some low, responses to his experience. He left thoughtful comments so the dealership could understand his ratings. He also replied to Brenda, who’d been desperate for that “one thing” that would have improved his experience.
He wrote, “I liked the people I worked with—my salesperson and my finance specialist. They were easy to work with and made it an enjoyable experience.”
Then he elaborated on what could have gone better:
Things I didn’t like was the experience of seeing all of the additional items that get added to the final purchase price that I then have to negotiate out or negotiate down with a lot of back-and-forth as everyone had to check with a higher-up while I wait. I hated that.
Still, he concluded on a positive note: “I’d buy from you again and intend to stick with this dealership for service. Thanks for asking.”
He never heard from Brenda again. Within hours of submitting his survey, his salesperson texted him again: “Hey Sula did I do anything wrong? I got a low score.” Sula wrote back, “Not at all—had nothing but great things to say about you. I hope they let you read it.”
The salesperson replied: “I understand that but every single score mattered.” Since then, Sula said, the dealership “lost” the paperwork on the bed cover he bought with his van. “Two months later I still don’t have a bed cover and every text and email I sent have gone unanswered, which leaves me feeling it is ‘payback’ for the fair and helpful survey I sent,” he said.
The leaders at Verdama Car Dealers were surely not intending to produce stories like this one. No doubt their original intent was pretty respectable: “We want to create a great car-buying experience for our customers! That mission is big, long-term, and somewhat diffuse. What kind of shorter-term goal might serve that long-term mission?
Boosting customer satisfaction scores. And my guess is that the team at the dealership where Sula bought his truck did, in fact, make progress toward that short-term goal. Probably their customer satisfaction scores were outstanding! But their success was due not to their passion for improving the customer experience but rather to their prowess at browbeating customers into providing falsely inflated scores. That’s a sad kind of excellence.
A better approach before setting goals like these is to ask yourself, “What is the goal behind the goal?” In so doing you can determine the frequency, point of contact, and pacing the sourcing of feedback. It is not enough to bombard customers with the survey in Customer Service month. It is not enough to send gifts in the same month, take pictures and join the bandwagon of “Customer Service” month. What is the goal behind the goal?
