I just got a followup call from Pleasanton (CA) Volvo, to make sure that I was happy with my service experience (which I was.) The caller said that I might get a followup survey form, and they hoped that I would check "Excellent". She said that "Good" and "Very Good" wasn't considered good enough.

By whom? From all the reports on the Brickboard about dealers that don't seem to care about customer service, who is it that is following up on these surveys? Or is it Rick Hendricks Automotive (MegaDealer that owns Pleasanton Volvo) that is doing the surveying, and not VCNA.

BTW, I had brought the car in for the burnt turn signal/socket thing, and they replaced both front bulbs and sockets even though only one had failed. In and out in 15 minutes. Another attaboy for that dealer.

My local delar in Florida, which you have all heard how much I care about, does the same thing. They have gone as far as fixing an item that was one week out of warranty on the promise that I would give them excellent ratings in the survey. For some reason or another when they do things like fixing my sagging sunroof headliner only to have it come loose again and then denying there is a problem, or spilling battery acid on the fender of my car when changing a battery and messing up the paint job, I never get a call from the survey company. Sounds like numbers are being padded to report them to JD Powers to get the ratings up and bring in new customers.

Numbers are DEFINITELY not padded. Actually it is most likely the opposite. I suspect that Volvo encourages the surveyors to talk people out of giving us ALL excellent as that means that they will pay us more $$$ in the long run. I have no solid proof for this claim but I am pretty sure that is the case...

Yannis

Being told that I should please mark all responses as "excellent" is surely not the way to elicit any real set of responses.

Right after I got my car, I got a form from my dealer. All the "right" responses (excellent, or in a few cases, yes) were highlighted. Sort of like an election poll that had Bush in big letters.

If the dealer really cared about getting feedback on quality, or VCNA cared, this would hardly be the way to do things. (I say this having no complaints with either.)

As the guy on this list who does Acura comparisons, I note we have seen exactly the same behavior from our Acura dealer.

So I do not think that anyone in this process is really interested in ascertaining the level of customer satisfaction.

This is not to say anything in general about Volvo dealers or VCNA, just that this particular part of the quality control process is not particularly good at getting people to reveal anything useful to anyone.

Neal

I agree with you, Neal, 110%. It is a $#!tty way to ensure quality control. There are much simpler and more fair surveys (and much shorter) to make sure that the Retailers are giving the best service possible.

It degrades the whole concept to HAVE to ask for an "excellent" in this lopsided graded system...

Yannis

Peter,

as Lance points out below, the survey is conducted by a third party who are paid by Volvo. They do not give a flying s#!t about you or your experience, all they want is to get the survey done ASAP. Sometimes, they will trick you into "not having to asnwer everything EXCELLENT". If you are happy with the service that Pleasanton gave you, make sure you do give the all excellent as each question asked is rated "excellent" (100%), "very good" (50%!!!!!), "good" (25%), "fair" (12.5%) or "poor" (0%). Even if you answer "very good" on one or two questions and the rest "excellent", that dealer is screwed. It is the MOST ASSININE survey where a mark "very good" is a failing grade. So, if you are happy, you can pay them back by answering "EXCELLENT" in EVERY question.

Yannis

Each time I go in for warranty service (too often but I love the car)

I get a call and go through the list on the phone. I try to be fair, giving the dealer credit where credit is due. But the interviewer has no concept of the questions and has asked if I would take the car there for service in the future. I had to remind her that it was leased (which was one of the questions) and that the warranty was longer than the lease!

I do understand low level clerical jobs, so do not get upset.

More like amused!

Rich

In my adventure with my V70 I was able to get to know the G.M. at my dealer fairly well. He was always going through memo's from VCNA with these survey results. He had a board in his office with the results posted. Sales, Service, and other issues were being tracked by VCNA. I do not no what incentives are tied to this, allocation, hold back $$$, the right to sell Volvo, all of these and more? Everytime I saw this I kept thinking about how my dealer was busting his behind to get to the bottom of the problems with my V70 and how VCNA would put up road blocks to solving these problems. Additionally these surveys are so scripted that when I would attempt to give some feedback on VCNA I could not. The customers and dealers are getting a raw deal on this.

Lance, one of the service advisors mentioned to me that the survey affects the number of loaner cars their dealership could have.

Brian,

the loaner cars that a dealership can put in have nothing to do with the C.S.I. scores that they get. A dealership is allowed to put in loaner service (for a 4-month period) an amount of cars that cannot exceed 3% of their PLANNING volume (that is given to them by Volvo Cars of North America) at the beginning of each year.

Yannis

Here is my take on these surveys. I have had the oppurtunity to take the after service survey multiple times seeing that my V70 has had a "relationship" with the service bay. When I have questioned as to whom wants the survey the response is VCNA has contracted with a third party to survey customers about their experience with the dealer. Well VCNA seems to hold the dealers to a higher standard than themselves. Maybe VCNA should look into a survey that looks at the bigger picture ?

"Well VCNA seems to hold the dealers to a higher standard than themselves. Maybe VCNA should look into a survey that looks at the bigger picture ? "

Good point Lance!