(Blue387)
Customer service surveys at car dealerships must be serious, serious business. That’s the only conclusion I can draw from Bob’s story about being bullied by the Ford dealership where he bought his Fiesta. They called him up to say that if he planned to rate his (unsatisfactory) service experience as anything but satisfactory, he would be hurting the dealership and practically stealing money out of employees’ pockets and yanking food out of their kids’ mouths. If he didn’t say nice things, the service manager insinuated, the dealership might decide not to service his car at all.
Bob writes:
After multiple attempts at fixing my new Ford Fiesta the dealership said their hands were tied because Ford considers my problems “normal”. The service tech and managers admit that they don’t feel the problems are normal but can’t do anything more because Ford won’t classify them as a problem.
Yesterday the dealership left me a message stating that I’d be receiving a survey and if they request that if you can’t mark it as satisfied with the service to contact them. I did exactly that and spoke with the dealership’s service manager and explained my concerns. He seemed to be understanding but stressed that a bad grade on the survey could affect the service tech’s and service advisor’s “paycheck and future employment”. When I explained that they didn’t really do anything wrong but I couldn’t classify myself as being satisfied he said that a bad survey could affect my ability to get service at his facility in the future and insinuated that I wouldn’t get good service in the future because they would know that I had given them bad marks. He also stated that he could refuse me service in the future. I feel like I’m being blackmailed.
No matter how hard Ford is coming down on them to get good customer service scores, this isn’t an acceptable tactic to reach the magical goal of 100%. At minimum, it sounds like it’s time to find a new dealership for service (assuming that warranty requirements mean that Bob has to go to a dealership to get his car fixed at all.)
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Unless it’s 100% free and covered by warranty, going to the dealer is BEGGING to be ripped off. And even then, I’d still reconsider…
I have to admit – I go to the dealer for the occasional service when the car is still under warranty. If nothing else, it helps develop a pretty good relationship with them for situations where I missed a recall or need work that I didn’t know would be covered under the warranty. I don’t take it in for every service – usually the 7500/22.5/etc where all that is generally needed is an oil change.
so much this. When my wifes tire blew out, she put on the spare and drove it to the dealership. They wanted $800 to replace the blown out tire, and the matching tire on the other side (for even wear). Went online, bought 4 new tires, mounted and balanced on new rims, for about $1000. Dealership is a huge ripoff to go to for anything other than warranty work (Unless you have a foreign car of some sort that requires very specific knowledge to fix and maintain)
Eh, I bought my Subie from a Chevy dealer and had an amazing experience; not only was the car in great condition AND a really good price (and this was after they put in about $1000 worth of maintenance and the thing had basically brand new tires), but they worked with the numbers to get the payments in a lower range for me, emailed to check up on how the car was doing, fixed a headlight that went out the day after I picked it up (and emailed me to make sure it had been fixed), have a very comprehensive online scheduling system for repairs (and good prices, to boot), and they offer free “pit stops” (which is basically where they fill your fluids and your tires). Plus, they give you a new car to borrow when yours is in for service. Our “regular” mechanic doesn’t work on Subies anymore, so I can either take it to an imports place to get fixed (nice guys, not bad prices, but no loaner car), or the dealer where I bought it (nice guys, not bad prices, easier to work with, loaner car).
But I agree that many, many dealerships are the devil, especially if you’re unprepared and don’t know much about cars. I went in prepped for negotiation and knowing what I wanted and where I would walk away.
I used to agree with this, however once we moved to BFE (aka the 3rd largest city in WV) I soon realized that the most qualified folks to work on my vehicle was the dealer. Once I did this I was presently surprised by the straight forwardness of the dealer, and how then under no circumstance tried to up-sell me on anything I did not need.
Additionally their prices are Cheap!
This may not be par for everyone…especially those folk not in my area, however it is nice and refreshing to see an honest dealers–and not pay an arm and a leg for vehicle maintenance and repair.
What’s their hourly rate? In this area, dealers are virtually always $20 – $50 more per hour than independent shops.
Presently surprised? Is that engrish?
I’ve had nothing but good experiences with dealership service departments over the last few years— a Mercedes dealership when I had my smart, and a BMW dealership now that I have a MINI.
Very accommodating, and do a good, straightforward job.
I wouldn’t buy a BMW after the experiences with my Mini and its dealership… especially since it was supposed to be one of the “good ones” as bimmer dealers go. Even with their ridiculously overpriced service, the engine still blew at around 70,000 miles. And I’ve never seen a car leak so many fluids so soon after assembly. It’s like they built it to reinforce all the worst stereotypes of both british and german cars. I’ll admit, though, it was fun as hell to drive the thing.
My dealership is amazing, I’ve had nothing but good experiences. Their prices are competitive, and they have NEVER tried to push service on me. I went in for an oil change last week and got exactly that. They mentioned that my battery and brake pads might need to be replaced “at some point,” but they actually encouraged me to wait until my next scheduled service rather than doing it the same day. I realize that this isn’t the norm, and there certainly are bad dealerships, but they aren’t all bad.
I scoffed at dealer service prices for years and I watched my first car basically go down in flames and leaking fluids by having it regularly maintained by local mechanics. I would get recommendations, try them out, get ripped off or get shitty work, rinse and repeat. And everyone I know is STILL getting ripped off, because when I tell them that my dealer does a great job, they just call me Mr. Moneybags.
I pay more upfront (maybe 20%) for service from the dealer but the work has always been flawless and I’ve never had to go back to “tweak the fix”. My days of replacement alternators lasting only 60 days (resulting in more missed work and hassle, even if the repair of the repair was free), missing small parts not bothered to be replaced (like plastic caps on my tires or covering bolts on the exterior), and things that all of a sudden break after an unrelated repair are over. I was actually nervous that they would be more willing to sabotage my ride to coax me to walk over to the sales floor, but that hasn’t been the case at all.
Service at dealers varies just like any other independent business.
They range from awful to great. Do your research and hope for
the best. If you don’t like them, switch.
This. I like using the Mechanics Files (from Car Talk) when researching a shop in addition to the usual Yelp/City Search/Angie’s List check.
http://www.cartalk.com/content/mechanics-files
Had to take my Mustang to the dealer for a new clutch- not where I bought the car. I knew it would cost a bit more, but I figured something was wrong with the cable assembly, which had not been fixed correctly the last time I had a clutch replaced. Turns out it was not that much more for the clutch replacement, and they were able to correctly fix the cable assembly. Ford’s parts people shipped the wrong parts for the cable assembly, so the dealer provided me a rental for free over the weekend, since they would not be able to repair in the time frame they told me. I could not have been happier! I will pay a little more for service like that!
Most dealerships run service specials constantly around here. If you wait until those specials come up the service generally cost less than taking to random mechanic X or random national chain Y and the job is always top notch and if any problems do develop from the job they will fix it for free. I also find that the dealerships are more concerend with making sure you are a happy customer than random car buisness Z because they know that if they service your car well, the next time you are in the market for a new car you will probably consider them your top choice of buying it assuming its in their company.
All I’ve had are GREAT experiences from my Lexus dealer, and the cost was even less in a few instances than what my friend quoted me from his garage he owns.
Ditto. I also get 5 points per dollar and can redeem them toward service. My last service was free.
I get the impression Bob’s satisfaction level was not improved by that conversation.
The dealership has the backasswards. They should try to make things right with their customer instead of bullying. Losers like that deserve bad press.
Which they won’t get here.
I’m not even seeing the name of the town.
There are two ways to be seen as a fine, upstanding member of the community.
Actually be one. Or have people so scared of you that they don’t dare say a word.
Why do so many corporations choose the latter?
Jeep does the same thing; your survey results are passed directly to Jeep and the dealership with all your information, so it’s not uncommon to find your vehicle suddenly unable to receive warranty work if you tell Jeep you had a problem with the dealership. Retarded process, removes any incentive from the customer to actually complain
Horror story for those interested. Granted, this is a modified vehicle problem, but that’s a whole other story. The fact of the matter is, complaining about the dealership lead the dealership to flag his VIN, making him unable to get any warranty work done to the car
http://www.jk-forum.com/showthread.php?132752-ATTENTION-Chrysler-WILL-VOID-Your-Warranty-if-You-Lift-Your-Jeep
Hyundai does the same thing, when you buy a vehcile or get service (though I never got the service surveys for some reason).
I used this as leverage when they didn’t pay my trade in’s loan off quick enough for my liking.
“I’ll be happy to give you a great review once our transaction is completed, and my prior vehcile’s loan is paid in full.”
Boom, done the next day.
I’m happy to say I haven’t had any problems with Hyundai, other than being slightly annoyed they don’t keep a few more parts stocked.
I was told at one point that the service folks do get fined for low scores, so I’d guess that Ford is doing something similar.
I feel a little bad for the OP’s Ford crew since it’s not necessarily their fault here, but it’s time to escalate up the chain a bit.
At Hyundai anyway there is money on the line for the salesman on a survey for a new car purchase. If I remember correctly, I’d get $200 from Hyundai for a “perfect” survey and $0 for anything less than that.
If I knew a customer had little reason to complain, I would just point out that if you thought this was a good experience, please put “excellent” as “good” is the same as “awful”. Terrible system by the way.
This almost makes me want to buy my next car somewhere other than where I plan to service it on purpose, so I can be honest on the survey and not have my future service affected.
When we bought my wife’s new Jetta, the salesman told us that the way we responded on the survey had a huge effect on his bonus at the end of the month. However, he approached it from the angle that he wanted us to be able to rate him all “10″s, so that if there was any issue with service he’d like the chance to address it before we gave him a low rating.
Gee, imagine that, working for a good rating instead of threatening to get one.
Yeah, but I don’t like that if they even get a 9, it’s insinuated that it’s a bad review. It’s pass at all 10s or fail. If you have constructive feedback on something to improve, that can hurt the salesman.
When we got our car, the salesman was fairly new (or at least that’s what he said.) My wife hates the typical sales pitch, so when he said “what can I do to get you in a car today” she told him customers don’t like the typical car salesman talk. He responded, but the problem is my boss tells us to say those things.
I agree, it’s insane – he said that for VW, anything less than a 10/10 is a failing grade, and if their average is below a 9, it cuts their bonus in half.
This is especially silly because a lot of the questions had very little to do directly with the salesman, such as cleanliness of bathrooms, appearance of dealership, happiness with the car purchase, etc.
Yeah I really hate the fact that many of those satisfaction surveys are run that way. If it isn’t a perfect score, it is counted as a bad rating. I’m not likely to give someone a 10 out of 10 ever unless my experience was 100% perfect and fast and the person bent over backwards and twisted them self into a pretzel to make me happy. The the case like aphex’s though, I probably would give a 10 out of 10 if I thought the guy genuinely wanted to address all issues to get straight 10s.
I don’t give anyone a 10 on anything unless they shit rainbows or something, to me 9 is as close to perfect as humanly possible. I’d never give anyone a 10 on everything, ever.
My thoughts as well. I would probably only rate someone a 1 if they were aggressively antagonistic or stealing from me. I would give someone a 10 if they did something crazy like break company policy to right a wrong.
That’s what my Subaru dealer said, too. Basically he needed all 10-out-of-10′s or else he doesn’t get a bonus, so if there was anything less than a 10 to call him and let him earn the 10.
Much better way of approaching the ridiculous standard that the manufacturer is holding them to.
VW IS fucking serious about those surveys.
I bought 2 GTIs and they were ON it.
Reminder calls, emails – the works.
I’m not sure what their game is…. but at my job – I don’t get a weekly bonus unless I get a good customer feedback survey.
Seriously – working at Apple – OUR ENTIRE JOB IS BASED ON THOSE FUCKING CSATS.
If you call us and you get one – lie and say it was awesome… y ou get absolutely nothing for bitching… except you might have cost an agent his or her job and raise.
We had this same discussion at a car forum that I work on, and that’s exactly what I said. It got pretty heated, and there was a lot of feedback from people who work at the dealers, too.
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/manufacturer-survey-about-dealer/45415/page1/
Blame the OP for buying a Ford (Fix Or Repair Daily)
I like Lotus ( Lots of Trouble, Usually Serious)
Last September I looked at a Ford Fiesta but purchased a Fiat Sport 500c instead. This car rocks and as of last weekend when the engine hit 11k miles I am getting 38 in the city. More importantly my dealership treats me golden and NEVER talks down to me. They treat me like a customer should be treated; respectful.
are Fiats sold I the US?
Found On Road Dead
First on Race Day
Forty-third On Race Day. FTFY.
Cheapest Heap Ever enVisioned Yet
I’m absolutely disgusted by the way dealerships beg for “perfect” scores on these customer satisfaction surveys. We bought a new car a few months ago from a dealership and they screwed up the delivery enough that it caused extra hassle for me. I had asked for 4 add-on’s (Lojack, heavy duty floor mats, etc). After putting my deposit down & signing all the paperwork they said the car would be ready in a few days. A few days later I got a call to say that the car was ready for me to pick up, and when I arrived I found that only one of the 4 add-on’s had been taken care of. I had to point out the ones that they’d neglected to do. They apologized profusely but it still took me two trips back to the dealer to get the remaining extras taken care of. During that time they made sure to remind me multiple times that I should give them the highest rating on the survey or it would seriously impact their reputation. They even gave me a free tank of gas and a handful of coupons for things like free tire rotations, free oil/filter changes, etc. whenever I want them, and with each “gift” they reminded me again of the survey. I felt like it was nothing more than blatant bribery on their part.
I still gave them lower marks on the survey, in part because of the way they tried to bribe me.
Just exactly what did you expect them to do? For whatever reason add-ons were not ready in time. Sometimes parts are not in stock, mechanics call in sick, etc… Absent a time machine they offered something else for free. Seems fair to me.
The last time I bought a car exactly the same thing happened to me: the add-on requested was not installed at the time of delivery; it was installed a couple of days later for free (it was about $60). I wouldn’t penalize their score just because of this..
What did he expect them to do? How about not telling him the car was ready when it wasn’t? How about not begging for a perfect score on a survey for an experience that wasn’t perfect.
We bought a Suzuki last year and went through this. They basically said anything less than a 10 would ruin them, and if we had ANY problems and needed anything to make things a “10″, to let them know first before the survey.
Dealerships have made these customer surveys useless. After I bought my new Dodge 8 years ago, I constantly got calls stating that any rating less than a “5″ (1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest) was considered a complete failure. I reminded them that they still owed me a factory installed DVD player, which took them two months to find and install. Then they tried to pull one over on me and install a third party system. All the while calling me to ask me to fill out their precious customer survey.
Finally I told them that at best, they could expect me to not fill out the survey at all, as opposed to filling it out and giving them all “1″ ratings, if they finished the job they promised me within one week. It took the dealership’s owner to finally get the correct part from the factory and get it installed.
That dealership closed down within the year.
I think this perfectly illustrates the problem – that likely the surveys are directly tied to their own compensation and determines if the dealership is allowed to stay open at all. So deadlers push hard for the great ratings. But when a dealership isn’t a good one, they end up pushing hard for a perfect score on piss poor service, which only exacerbates the customers, giving them a worse score, and compounding their own problem.
Shocker, the best way to get great survey scores is to be great to your customer. Bad dealers never see it that way, though.
yeah, dealers suck. If only i had known of this site a year ago, i would have posted my interaction with a North Jersey Mazda dealer gone awry.
Twas a learning experience indeed and now i have a local mechanic who “loves” my brand of car and actually tries to keep my business.
These surveys are really common in retail, and they always affect bonuses, possibly employment. However, it’s deeply concerning to me that the results aren’t passed along ANNOYMOUSLY to the dealer like they are in other industries. You’re just asking for backlash and blackmail this way.
He seemed to be understanding but stressed that a bad grade on the survey could affect the service tech’s and service advisor’s “paycheck and future employment”.
_____________________________
This is what I would have said to the dealership’s service manager, “Not my f-ing problem pal. Do you job the right way and you folks would not be getting a bad grade.”
This clown needs to be fired for being insolent toward a customer.
I am Bob’s utter lack of satisfaction
Bob, they just gave you a gift: They told you how much they care about the survey scores.
Use it to get what you want from them. Hold a good score over their heads. Get in contact with the regional rep and tell him of any good service or bad service you’ve received from your contact at the dealership.
Every Ford dealer I’ve been to is like this. They will practically beg, crying at your feet to give them good survey marks. After my last round of problems with a dealer here, I gave them unsatisfactory marks anyway and they continue to call and email me wanting to talk. I just ignore them.
All dealers I have dealt with in the past 5+ years have been this way. Makes the survey process useless.
What I hate about these surveys is that it is more often than not the company as a whole that causes me to want to lower the score, but the company holds the score I give their horrible policies against the sales people. I always wish these were open ended questions, so I could really tell them what I think.
You see they don’t care about what you think really since if they gave you a text box to type in, they’d actually have to pay someone to read the text. If all you have are radio buttons and check boxes, then they can just spit out a report at the end of the month with all of the metrics they want to judge on.
Perhaps the car companies shouldn’t tell their dealers which customers will get surveys. When I get a follow-up call from the dealer asking if everything was ok, then I know that I’ll be getting a survey shortly.
Yeah, my dealers also ask me to tell them in advance if I won’t be scoring them excellent. Why? What will they do – prepare an excuse to use with the manufacturer?
Once, I got stranded out of town a few days after I’d had the car in to my local dealer. The out of town dealer told me my alternator had been unplugged. Well, since I had had to reprogram the radio, I knew my local dealer had done it. Then I got a call from the out of town dealer asking how things are. So I knew I was getting a survey. But when the survey came, it was actually for the local service. So I raked them over the coals. When I brought the car in locally the next time, the service manager had my filled-out survey with her. The dealer owner had scribbled on the printout, “what is this guy’s problem?” I explained, and she denied they had anything to do with it, even though they had obviously disconnected the electrical system as shown by my having to reprogram the radio.
Given the owner’s response to my survey, I can see how meaningless they are.
Unfortunately, they’re not exaggerating that much!
I worked as a salesman at a Ford dealer about 12-13 years ago, and these surveys were taken VERY seriously. According to Ford’s rules, anything less than a “Completely Satisfied” on a couple of the questions is the equivalent of an “F” and more than 2-3 in one month can result in the dealer losing some of their incentive money on EVERY sale for the next 60-90 days. That can be anywhere from $100-500 per vehicle sold. It isn’t hard to see how at a larger dealer how that can add up quickly, and even at smaller dealers can eat into a large part of their monthly profit. One time I got a “Very Satisfied” I was counseled that if I got another one in the next couple of months that I’d be fired.
Its the manufacturers that need to re-tool these surveys and their incentives to the dealers so that they get honest results and so that the dealers (and by extension, salesmen) don’t have to keep begging customers for perfect scores.
I used to care about this type of survey a lot too. *Ahem*
Please pass those thoughts onto the companies that deal with the surveys. If they are not in touch with reality then the higher-ups need to know.
There is a mentality that the car business that:
1) there can be no change
2) buyers are a homogenous bunch who can all be 100% satisfied
3) the best metric is top box.
I have used the system to barter (to at the end of month to the dealer that is closest to meeting their goal and promise Top Boxes across the survey if they give me X price).
It is definitely a broken system, but it does have one merit: It gets dealerships to say the magic phrase “If there is any reason to not give top box, let us know and we will make it right.” Think of how much worse the process would be without that phrase!
When I bought my truck a few years back the salesman talked about the survey they would mail me and how much I needed to fill it out and send it in with maxed out 5s. I told him that once our transaction was done the I was done with the dealership. I shouldn’t have to be guilted into doing extra paperwork in addition to all the required bullshit needed for the transaction itself. I’m not a number or a source of information or a survey. I’m a person and I just gave them thousands of dollars. Take the money, give me the vehicle and leave me the f*ck alone.
What a joke… No one’s getting fired; the Managers of New Cars, Used Cars and Service, as well as the teams under them, the GM and the owner, all get paid incentive money based on their CSR (Consumer Satisfaction Report) scores. These payments add up to a lot of money. This is an inducement by the manufacturer for the dealership not to screw the customer (ok, you can all stop laughing now).
The Service Manager, knowing that by fault of the factory not to fix OP’s under warranty, he is at risk for bad marks and is trying to guilt out a satisfactory score. What OP should do is not answer the survey and instead blast the manufacturer’s zone office with a cc: higher up and to the Service Manager, as to his dissatisfaction with the manufacturer’s policy of not repairing under warranty his car.
At a retail job I worked my company did those receipt based surveys you see everywhere. They were SO hardcore about them. It was common for our District Manager to send out emails daily breaking down the most recent surveys and chiding stores who weren’t getting good marks.
You were supposedly entered for a chance to win a gift card if you took the survey. My manager decided to try and game the system by telling customers they would only be entered in to the gift card drawing if they gave us 4s or 5s (out of 5). Corporate didn’t do anything about this behavior, I guess they were happy our numbers looked good.
We could even get in trouble if not enough surveys were taken.
Contact Ford, if they dealer thinks getting a bad survey hurt them in the eyes of Ford, reporting this to Ford is going to likely get your car fixed and the dealership will end up very unhappy.
The other option is to get ahold of the general manager at the dealership, they can get whatever you need taken care of resolved and are more sensitive, most people will not do this, they think the service manager is the last word on getting something fixed.
There’s nothing the local dealership can’t fix if they want to — they’re just passing the buck for things they’re too lazy to figure out or are untrained to properly repair. (I had a dealership suggest they keep the car for a week and log in multiple repair attempts so they could declare it a lemon and get me a different one.)
We bought two cars from a local Ford dealer last year, a 2012 Escape for the wife, and a 2007 Ranger for me. The darned salesman darn near got down on his knees and begged us to give him and the dealership the highest rating on the survey that we “might” get. He painted a pretty grim picture of any thing less. We had zero problems with both deals, and I felt we got a pretty good deal on our tradein, once I got through laughing at the initial VERY low-ball trade-in offer they gave us. I’d done my homework on all of the car sites, so I KNEW what the trade-in value was. We traded the wife’s 2008 Hyundai Accent in for the Escape, but my Ranger was a strictly cash deal, no trade-in. Their initial offer was about 4K, and all of the car sites showed that with the extremely low mileage (less than 10K miles.. She doesnt drive very much) and other factors, the trade-in value was closer to 8K. When I got through laughing and telling them if thats all they were going to offer, we’d go sell the Hyundai ourselves, get 10K for it, and then come back and see them. After a bit of the salesman going to see the manager, they came up to 7K which closed the deal..
I’d be calling Ford and giving them a sample of how this guy tries to solve customer service issues. Threatening no future service on a car that is under warranty is ridiculous. I guess I am lucky to live in an area with many car dealerships. If one ticks me off, I can go to another. It might not be as convenient, but I have options at least.
Easy solution: tell them they need to fix the car properly or you’ll give them 1′s across the board. If they can’t fix it, they need to replace it (or you’ll keep giving them 1′s). If they refuse service, take it to another dealer.
This is wrong and I guarantee 100% against policy set by Ford. I would contact Ford directly and express to them about this extortion that you are being subject to. I work for a dealership. If they were to try to tie my pay to the survey system and if my job was in jeopardy, I would take the matter up with the corporate offices.
As a customer, you have a right to express your opinion about the service experience. this is a tool that is used to help make things better in the future.
The only thing I can tell you is that the survey usually reflects many different aspects of the visit. Don;t give horrible scores for the advisor if he did everything he could dow ithin his power. If you genuinely had a good experience with the advisor, then say so. If the facility was in poor shape, answer accordingly. if the car was not fixed, give your answer and explain why.
I never tell my customers to score me with a favorable report. all I do is ask that if they get a survey to please take the time and let us know how we are doing. I advise them if there are any issues, please let us know so that we can fix it. If we don;t know there is a problem, how will we fix the issue?
At my dealership we would never deny warranty coverage or repairs if we got a bad survey, we would simply try our best to make things right by the customer.
I do not know what his issues with the car are, but perhaps he should be researching online his issues to see if this is soemthing others are complaining about. if it is, then he should try to find out if anyone else who has the issue has had it resolved and what was done.
Perhaps the issues he has are considered normal, but if he believes they are not, he should contact ford directly. the dealership is a seperate entity and sometimes it is best to go over their head to corporate.
Just glad that with my company, our policies and procedures and the way we handle our clients is reflected well and our clients are happy. Unfortunately you cannot please everyone, but that is the way that things are.
My husband works for a car rental company and they also have these “customer satisfaction surveys” that affect employees’ pay. Each location has a goal of a score of (if I remember correctly) 98% or better, and instead of that affecting their base salary, they get a bonus if they meet their score goal. I think it’s a much better system than this BS, especially because no customers get harassed this way.
I had to submit a D grade on a roofer recently on Angies list. He called me and actually said “you know, everyone can see that review”.
Umm, yeah; that’s the point, moron.
With regard to the OP’s original problem with his Fiesta, if it’s a recurring problem that Ford is calling “normal” then I’m going to guess it has something to do with the dual-clutch automatic transmission that was new for Ford last year. It’s been nothing but problems for them. They say the shift pattern is operating as designed, but every review of the car states that the calibration for the transmission just isn’t right. It supposedly feels sloppy, with lots of upshifting and downshifting and is jerky at low speeds. But that’s how they all are, apparently. So yeah, Ford won’t really do anything about it. If that’s the problem, then unfortunately the OP is going to have to live with it. Aside from that the Fiesta is a nice car, especially with a manual transmission.
As far as these dealership surveys go, just the notion that you have to be magically “totally satisfied” or the dealership fails is baloney. The manufacturer holding this level of achievement over the dealership’s head is just silly. I mean, everything can go fine when getting your car serviced, but are you really truly TOTALLY satisfied? “Meh, the price could have been a bit cheaper. Meh, maybe they could have finished a bit faster.” Still, everything else could be fine, but then the dealership feels the power of hell come down on them because they didn’t do everything short of wipe your butt for you. Some dealerships don’t deserve the consequences they get, but yeah, there are a lot less scrupulous dealers that try to game the system when you do have a legitimate complaint. Personally I’ve been bribed with full tanks of gas or free oil changes for being completely satisfied on surveys. If I really don’t have a problem then sure, I’ll take a free tank of gas. Whatever. But if I do have a problem I’ll put it on the survey since I can’t be bought for a $20 oil change.
Personally I think it’s a problem with those dual shift transmissions period. When the computer decides in advance what you are going to do and you don’t do it, it slams it into the gear.
We are having all sorts of problems with the VW Jetta that has one and the nasty thing is, these transmissions are becoming ubiquitous.
I rented the new focus for the weak in February, definitly had some issues shifting at low speed. It seemed to handle fine once you got above 20 mph.
Just went through this exact experience last week at a GM dealer. Salesguy said last year he had a customer give him all “1″s (1-5 scale) and that one customer cost him his yearly bonus by dragging down his average scores. He had a laminated copy of a completed survey filled in with all “5″s that he showed me while he stressed how important it was to fill it out just like that one. He made such a big deal out of it, it was over the top.
If they are that important, I guess the only way to have leverage is hold on to the survey before sending it in for as long as you need to get everything taken care of to your satisfaction.
I got the same thing from Desert Mini in Las Vegas. They require a 10/10 on the survey, though they didn’t say they’d be thrown onto the street. I wasn’t going to give them a 10/10, so I just didn’t fill it out. Charging $200 for a $100 tire (that they wouldn’t patch) is not my idea of 10/10.
I wonder what the problem actually is. That probably has some bearing on why it’s not being fixed because Ford doesn’t consider it to be a problem.
A stealership or anyone else groveling or demanding a survey be filled out a particular way would really rub me the wrong way and make me more inclined to rate on the low side of my actual feelings rather than rounding-up.
But that said, if a customer is being unreasonably difficult and I’m likely not going to be able to make them happy even putting in tons of extra effort, as someone who’s owned & operated businesses, I tend to be inclined to turn away their business as the manager at the stealership threatened to do. I’m not in business to squander all my effort on a tiny minority of assholes who will find a problem and whine no matter what, I’d rather go above and beyond for the good customers who really appreciate my efforts.
I’m not saying the OP is being unreasonable (there’s a good chance Ford is being unreasonable and sloppy, and expect the customer to just deal with a shitty product since that’s what the Big Three US automakers have come to be known for), but it’s always good to examine what’s within someone’s control & lay out exactly what one expects to happen– not “just fix/do it!”, but rather reach an understanding as to the nature of the problem and what is possible– and then see how those expectations go.
It’s a shame that customer service at a dealership can be so inconsistent across the brand. These surveys are the manufacturer’s attempts to get all dealers on the same page.
I blame the OP for buying a Ford
What’s really sad about this situation is that it’s not just the car dealers anymore. One of my very good friends was service manager in a Ford dealership and the stories he used to tell me were unbelievable. He finally got so fed up he opened his own repair shop. The auto manufacturers were kind of the ones on the “leading edge” of this game but more and more manufacturers are now doing it. The bad thing abou these surveys is that they are written in such a way as to preclude your pointing the finger at the company. It all centers around the dealer so the survey effectively prohibits you from pointing out that the root problem was a manufacturing defect or the like.
Using this method allows the manufacturer to say that their product is the highest quality as there are no complaints about them – it’s all the dealers fault. Goes back to the old saying “Liars figure and figures lie”.
Definitely time to go elsewhere, and to give a very unsatisfactory rating over this tactic, not just the service problems alone. Of course, mentioning that service manager by name is also important – to make sure that his, not others’, paychecks are affected by the review.
I hate dealerships. The only reason I deal with one now is for recall issues – I figure that if I have a car that is on its 5th recall, they can suck up fixing or inspecting it. Every time I’ve gone in, I’ve been lied to, though. My brakes are in crisis (I just had them done a week before at an independent shop). I need to do my annual maintenance with them or I’ll void my warranty (it ran out 30,000 miles ago, jerks). On and on… It has almost become a game.
Begging for a satisfactory survey score instead of discussing the customer concerns? … RUN
Horror story time.
I promised the dealer that I wouldn’t trash them on the internet because eventually they did acquiesce and granted me the deal that I wanted.
Disclaimer: I bought a Honda Oddysey from them that had been traded in to their Honda/Hyundai dealer across the street (this was a Toyota dealer.)
Things that happened:
1) Bait and switch, even after they tell you they don’t do it. I was offered a deal on the van on Sunday, in an effort to try to get me to buy that day. I had been told earlier in the process that they “don’t play that game”, where they offer you a price that’s for that day only. When I went in on Monday to put down a deposit on the van, surprise! The price had gone up and they weren’t going to honor the previous deal, even though I had it in writing.
2) Destruction of documents regarding the deal. When I went in on Monday to put down the deposit, they had a copy of the ‘worksheet’ that they use when making the deal. It mysteriously vanished somewhere between the salesman’s desk in the showroom and the ‘business office’. Wonder if it had something to do with the fact that they didn’t want to honor the previous deal..
3) Deceptive paperwork practices. When I went in to put down my deposit, that’s when they wrote up the deal for financing and so forth. They tried to pretend that I had agreed to pay the asking price, when I had been offered $1000 below what they were asking. The scumbag ‘business manager’ guy wrote up the deal at the full asking price! Needless to say, I caught this when looking over the paperwork.
4) Requiring me to scream rant and rave and threaten to do so in full earshot of all their current customers about the above practices. I have never been so furious with one of these motherfuckers than I was at that point. Had the deal not have been as good as it was, and worth fighting for, that would have been the end of it.
Then the assholes had the temerity to ask me to give them kudos on the Internet! I gave the guy a very icy “we’ll see” to that.
Like I said, I agreed to not actively trash them on open fora like this, which I probably should not have done. Let’s just say that you should never go to a dealer that rhymes with Berb Lambers in a town that rhymes with Bob Urn, in a state that starts with “M” and ends with “Assachusetts”.
On an unrelated note, has anyone ever had problems at Herb Chambers in Woburn, MA?
Do it anyway, and go to another dealership or an independent mechanic.
These surveys directly effect the pay of the sales rep and dealership. The volume bonus or incentives that a dealer gets from the manufacturer are often tied to a certain (95%/97%) survey response. In the case of a high volume dealership you are talking in the tens of thousands a month.
I had one company hand me a survey and told me that anything under a 5 (on a scale of 1-5) would be considered a failing grade. And then when I gave them a 4, they called me to quiz me about why I only gave them a 4. Service like that makes me want to go shop somewhere else.
I had this happen with Kia. Speedometer and an air sensor stopped working. The local dealership kept my vehicle for a full day before calling back to let me know that they didn’t have the parts to fix it, and it would be weeks to fix. I went to another dealership, they gave me a free rental vehicle, fixed it within 24 hours. I gave the second dealership all 10s, and the first all 1s.
Later when the transmission failed, the dealership immediately said, “Oh, we see where you rated us poorly. Oh, this isn’t covered under the warranty.” No more Kia in my future.
Huh… Where can I fill out a survey for the Ford dealership that held me and my pregnant wife hostage for 3 hours while refusing to take NO for an answer until I grabbed the keys to my car away from the salesman and walked out? He had the keys so they could assess my car for its potential trade-in value… We went for a simple test drive and allowed the staff to inspect my WRX as a trade-in. After we got back from the test drive the hard sell was on. Once he had the keys we were trapped until I was fed up enough to storm out. Went to a different dealership and wound up buying a Mazda 3, which I like far more than I liked the Focus we test drove anyway.
Huh… Where can I fill out a survey for the Ford dealership that held me and my pregnant wife hostage for 3 hours while refusing to take NO for an answer until I grabbed the keys to my car away from the salesman and walked out? He had the keys so they could assess my car for its potential trade-in value… We went for a simple test drive and allowed the staff to inspect my WRX as a trade-in. After we got back from the test drive the hard sell was on. Once he had the keys we were trapped until I was fed up enough to storm out. Went to a different dealership and wound up buying a Mazda 3, which I like far more than I liked the Focus we test drove anyway.
We have had the same experience at our local Ford dealership. When we bought the car & had the first service done, we could give them a perfect score. On this last visit, I encountered a problem. I voiced my concern & received a huge brush off from the employee. I wrote an email complaint to the general manager & copied it to my salesperson. No response. So, I wrote to @FordService via Twitter. Then, my complaint was taken care of by the local dealership. If they don’t want trouble from Ford, then don’t ignore my complaint. The service manager did ask me to tell @FordService that the complaint was corrected. Since I could do so honestly, I gave him a glowing report.
Nice
Toyota does the same. So I just never fill out their surveys.