Automakers demand nothing but perfection. No, no, not necessarily from their employees or their dealerships. They demand perfection from us consumers when we respond to surveys about the service at the dealership. It turns out that bad scores can cost dealerships and even individual salespeople a lot of money, and dealerships will ban bad survey-takers from doing business with them.

No, really. Consumerist reader Robert reports that he received an e-mail saying that he was “no longer welcome” at that dealership. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of this, and not even the first time we’ve heard about it from a Ford dealer. A dealer in a different part of the country sent one of our readers a similar e-mail a few years ago, wishing him “good luck with [his] future automotive transactions” but he wasn’t welcome back.

Robert says that he submitted an honest survey after a bad experience buying a Ford truck, and in the comments he explained that the bad rating was because his salesman lacked people skills. He received this e-mail when he contacted the dealership the following year about another possible purchase:

Since that survey actually cost myself and the dealership money from Ford, I will have to personally pass on your offer. I’ll go brush up on my people skills and I hope you find what you’re looking for in the future.

One dealership told a reader who was a service customer that giving bad survey grades meant that he was metaphorically tossing the dealership’s employees out on the street.

A salesperson at a luxury dealership explained that a bad survey score means that he loses at least $100 from his commission. You start to see why sales staff simply take the surveys themselves, or “fire” customers who are difficult to please.

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