This is dedicated to the vehicle manufacturers that are responsible for the manufacture and distribution of the contemptible, biased and truly flawed survey system for customer satisfaction.

Ideally

The way the system is supposed to run is that vehicle manufacturers will offer incentives to dealers who have survey results that show the best levels of customer satisfaction.  While this may sound to be on the up and up, it really isn't. 

Reality

Sure, there are some dealerships that may practice ethics and it may be fair for those...however, they are few and far between.  The rest of the dealerships will lie, cheat and steal from their grandmother in front of the church on a Sunday to get the results that they need in order to get the survey results that will earn them the offered incentives. 

Results

When things like the above happen, it can and does result in a survey process regarding customer satisfaction that truly (in itself) dissatisfies the customers. 

Doing surveys on customer satisfaction can actually be helpful...if the answers given are honest.  When dealerships tell their customers what answers to give and what to rate them, in what world is that honest? 

When sales people actually try to game the customers by telling them that if they do not return the surveys with all 5s the sales people will be written up, how is that going to show where areas of improvement are needed or indeed where things may be going fine? 

There are dealerships that will drop the price on a vehicle just to get a perfect survey.  Some dealerships actually bribe customers wit a free tank of gas for a perfect survey.

Honesty Loses

When competitors are doing everything they can to cheat the system, where does that leave the honest ones?  By being honest about it they automatically set themselves back.  It unfairly penalizes not just the owner of the dealership but also everyone who works there...all for being honest. 

Change

There is a growing call for a change in this system.  There needs to be a change.  By the survey system being abused as it is, it is unfair to everyone from the customers to the dealerships and everyone else involved. 

The way that the system is currently designed and operating should be used instead as a model for how NOT to run a customer satisfaction system. 

Suggestions

Here are a few suggestions for changes to the current system:

• Don't offer monetary incentives...this invites corruption.
• Don't use the results of the surveys to bring employee morale down.
• Look at the results and find ways to improve upon them...not dwell on them.
• Don't badger customers to fill them out at all. 
• Offer them the opportunity to participate in a customer satisfaction survey.  If they do, great!  If not, at least you will not be getting fake answers. 

By instituting the changes that need to happen, manufacturers will be able to accurately measure the performance of dealerships and how satisfied or unsatisfied the customers actually are.  How things are now, they only determine who is the most dishonest.