[3.0L]

Do you ever feel pressured to return high marks for your dealer/servicer? I certainly do. They keep sending me reminders to not only complete their survey, but also pressure to give them high marks.

In the past, I've tried to be fair and objective, but this has come home to roost during my next service visit - almost confrontational: "Oh, I see that you weren't too happy with your last service visit."

I don't want "special treatment." I simply want to be treated like I hope they treat all of their valued customers. So on the one hand, I kind of appreciate the opportunity to register any complaints, should I have any. On the other hand, I do not appreciate the pressure to give high marks when they clearly don't deserve them.

[DF]

I fill them out honestly. Once I gave a shitty review ans BMW na was on the phone with me the next day to make it right

[overcoil]

when buying a honda recently about 75% through the purchase process but before handling over the money the salesman say's "I really need you to give me an all 10 score for the new owner Honda survey" and I felt it was a sales tactic to lower my guard when going into the finance office.
I wonder how much survey's are really for quality control as much as more of a type of advertising or ploy to have you engage more often with their service department.

[Maynard]

I make a point to turn one in (at least one - if not the online and a paper one) to capitalize on that positive recollection. It does bug me that the metric is so skewed - 'perfect' scores are the norm, apparently, so unless it was a real problem I give them maxed scores. I've never had a big problem that would have me downrating, but I will give them feedback in person instead; doesn't seem fair to torpedo their rankings just to leave feedback, and I do feel some pressure to not be causing problems. Kind of like when my wife says 'how do you like this [dinner, dress, jewelry, etc]' - I've learned to stay out of 'editor mode' and save the critiques for another time.

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by Maynard

... Kind of like when my wife says 'how do you like this [dinner, dress, jewelry, etc]' - I've learned to stay out of 'editor mode' and save the critiques for another time.

Wife: "Honey, I've been thinking... if I die before you, will you remarry?"
Husband (trying to act noble): " Why no dear, of course not."
Wife: "What's the matter?! Don't you like being married?!"
Husband (now back-tracking): "Well, perhaps I would remarry."
Wife: "Oh yeah?! And just who do you have in mind?!!!"


Like the surveys, no good answer. We're hosed.

[crabu2]

I had a salesman call me because I gave him a FAT ZERO on the survey. Him calling me just reinforced my belief that he was a terrible sales guy.

If they want 10s, they need to treat me as a valued customer.

[BEM-S4]

Before slamming them on the survey, if I am not happy I always speak with the service manager first. It's best if you have a relationship with a dealer based on repeated good interactions to give them the benefit of the doubt and go to the extra effort to figure out what happened before getting corporate involved with bad survey results.

Took dad's convertible in for rear brakes should have been like $800. He picked it up, was charged roughly double. I was pissed but since there was some room for confusion on our side, namely the person given the estimate and authorizing the work was not who picked it up, I spoke with the manager. Turns out the SA who helped me was not there for pickup and the SA that took care of that mistakenly double billed the labor since it was included in the original quote but not called out separately. No harm done, got a refund within 5 minutes and we all went about our day. There was just some confusion and miscommunication on both sides. Mistakes happen, if it's an honest mistake and the person meant well but something came up I am not going to slam them. They get paid based on survey results.

That said when I am treated rudely or inappropriately by any staff members I raise holy hell and let the 0s fly as needed. I once got an SA at a non-BMW dealer fired after we got in a screaming match that literally shut down the dealership for an hour while it was sorted out. So bottom line, if it's obvious bullshit or someone behaving in an inappropriate way by all means get corporate involved. At that point screw the survey, I'd be on the phone with my contact at corporate before even leaving the dealership.

[pz619]

The surveys are a joke. Every time I go I'm told about the survey and if I felt like they did 10 work. They treat a 9 like a complete failure.

The reality is that they normally do 5 work, which I believe should be the baseline. I give them the car, they fix or maintain the car, then give it back. It really isn't any different than a Kia dealership other than the loaner cars and lobby is a nicer place to spend time. The service is pretty much the exact same. I'm happy at the end of the day and it's exactly what I expected but when I get that survey I'm basically forced to lie. It feels like on the survey I'm writing they had the red carpet out and there were trumpets that played during my arrival. I've never been treated so well in my life.

In the end I give my guy 10s because he does a decent job and I don't want to hurt his bottom line or how his managers view him. I certainly don't want the guy to lose his job because I gave him 5s. But if BMW ever wants real feedback, they'll stop tying bonuses to this worthless survey.

[BEM-S4]

Originally Posted by 3.0L

Wife: "Honey, I've been thinking... if I die before you, will you remarry?"
Husband (trying to act noble): " Why no dear, of course not."
Wife: "What's the matter?! Don't you like being married?!"
Husband (now back-tracking): "Well, perhaps I would remarry."
Wife: "Oh yeah?! And just who do you have in mind?!!!"


Like the surveys, no good answer. We're hosed.

I got yelled at the other day for bad timing. GF yelled from her walk in if she looked fat in dress. I responded no you look great. Problem was, she was still in the closet and I hadn't seen the damn thing yet. That spurred a "do you lie to me and tell me what I want to hear all the time" string of questions.

[BEM-S4]

Originally Posted by pz619

In the end I give my guy 10s because he does a decent job and I don't want to hurt his bottom line or how his managers view him. I certainly don't want the guy to lose his job because I gave him 5s. But if BMW ever wants real feedback, they'll stop tying bonuses to this worthless survey.

That's the biggest problem right there. It's very binary and the service has to be horrible for you to want to cause a huge issue for someone. So there's no way to provide feedback that's constructive that won't negatively impact someone. It's also tough to pinpoint whose fault anything is, I mean unless the problem is arguing with someone. So my car takes 2x longer than it should have, is that the SA's fault? In all likelihood probably not. But if I give bad marks, I assume it shows up against the SA. Unless you argue that the SA is supposed to be project manager for every car that comes in, it gets murky kind of quickly in my mind.

[B_Rice]

Coming the dealer side of things, the surveys are really fucked up. Corporate treats anything that's not a 10 or a yes as a failure. It really doesn't serve to fix anything and it just hurts everyone involved. I.e. like that question where they ask if the showroom was clean? If we get enough 9s on those everyone loses their money, both sales and people in service. The best way to resolve a problem is to contact wither the salesman or the sales manager and if that doesn't work call the general sales manager. Usually at this point the issue gets resolved pretty quickly. If not, you really should call corporate.

[RacerDad]

I used to work in a dealership so I understand the value of the survey. As a customer, I will give the dealer all 10s if they did the job right. If they made a mistake or there is a discrepancy, I will talk to the service manager to get it resolved before I mark them down on the survey.

Some dealers deserve to be downrated. Most issues stem from communication breakdowns. In my experience, the dealer personnel, for the most part, are trying to do right by the customer.

[Mr Carrots]

The 10's or bust mentality is insane, my sales guy is awesome and has helped me scrape together some serious savings on my 2 purchases this year so I give him 10's, but in reality it was more like a '7' - I had to call GolfRR (who really deserves a 10!) and BMW fleet to clarify things on a $1500 incentive that I almost lost out on because my SA insisted it wasn't possible to stack with AARP.

But I like the guy and he saved me money, so a '10' seems reasonable.

[wjones14]

I just went in last week for my second annual free maintenance appointment, and yes, the service manager asked me to give them all 10s on the survey that would be coming in the mail.

And to their credit, there was nothing to complain about with the service. I drove in at my appointment time and was greeted immediately. The waiting area was immaculate and complete with a variety of complimentary [healthy] snacks, bottled water, coffee, HD television, an HD monitor with information on the cars currently being serviced, and comfortable leather seats.

For the service itself, the car only has 7700 miles after 2 years, so it only required an oil change because a year had passed. They also replaced the wiper blades (even though I don't drive it in rain) and cabin air filter. And I requested that they not wash the car, and they didn't!

I walked around the car checking for nicks and there were none. I also checked the steering wheel and shifter for grease or dirt, and didn't find any.

The survey came and I did give them all 10s.

[Zoomigo]

So... I probably should have given all zeroes that time I picked up my car from service, and discovered the reason they wanted to keep it overnight was so the service guy could take it home with him, and pick up food at the drive-thru that he ate in my car. (I found the dropped noodles Beside the drivers seat the day after I picked it up, with an extra 35 miles on it).

[Mr Carrots]

Originally Posted by Zoomigo

So... I probably should have given all zeroes that time I picked up my car from service, and discovered the reason they wanted to keep it overnight was so the service guy could take it home with him, and pick up food at the drive-thru that he ate in my car. (I found the dropped noodles Beside the drivers seat the day after I picked it up, with an extra 35 miles on it).

The only time mine's been in the shop I didn't think to note the exact milage. When the service guy handed me the keys he smiled a little too much and said 'that's a GREAT car you have there, REALLY fun'

Right there I started wondering...

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by Zoomigo

So... I probably should have given all zeroes that time I picked up my car from service, and discovered the reason they wanted to keep it overnight was so the service guy could take it home with him, and pick up food at the drive-thru that he ate in my car. (I found the dropped noodles Beside the drivers seat the day after I picked it up, with an extra 35 miles on it).

More than the zero's, you should have called corporate headquarters and raised hell. I did this a year ago and corporate was all over it. Funny thing is that the usual "survey" request never appeared, likely because I preceded it with a strong complaint directly to my dealer. I think they tried to circumvent me, but it didn't work.

[Deutsche-Broke]

Having known a couple of BMW salespeople on a personal level, outside of the dealership, the surveys are known and disliked by most of the staff. I have heard, that it is a “noose” constantly hanging over them, regardless if the dealer has the staff and product in place to take care of the customer demand..

Having been through the purchase process a number of times, I asked a friend what weight they have to the average dealer.. He relayed two main points. The lower the scores, the lower the purchasing power from BMWNA. If, “less than stellar scores” show up, they will be lower on the list for high demand cars and general inventory.. (You won’t see special high end M cars in the dealership..). The other he mentioned is that the general manager gets the direct feedback from BMWNA and that it has a general, “closed door”, waiting for the hammer to drop effect on most working there.. He also mentioned that to work at a good BMW dealer, you really have to, “drink the kool aid” and buy into all of it at a constant 110%. He also said, “If the lot isn’t packed with new inventory, move along.. That’s a sure sign”…

The other interesting thing I heard from them is that BMWNA knows that the survey metric is set to, “nuclear” and that their sales and service people are pleading with customers to rate them at “10” across the board.. I was told that this was quite normal and factored in accordingly.. Basically, like a Yelp logarithm and keeps a “level” playing field.

Apparently, the surveys are intended and directed for first time purchasers. Reputable, established dealers know that return customers will indeed return if they are treated well and they want newer or first time buyers to make that transition.

Regardless, my last purchase was wrapped up with the traditional, “You know about the survey, right?”, when I responded yes, I was told, “Yeah.. Whatever you think is fair.”

I’m quite lucky to have a very established, professional dealer and not have any issues along with a couple of acquaintances who have worked for the machine. It could have been a lot worse..

It’s a less than stellar system, but hopefully, it keeps the old US stealership model honest.

[omera60]

My sale process was flawless partly it involved the head of BMW in Turkey as my father is friends with the owner and partly they know us for many years. Service segment is what gets me stumbled, we take our cars to them all the time and get good discounts etc with great treatment but the issue is with their vale, after they receive your car they will call a vale to take it down the workshop. These guys are horrible at driving and reckless. I had 2 incidents with them; once they didn't cover my steering and the seat so the seat was dirty and the steering wheel had a large scratch on the leather, they first wanted to cut the leather and bring a new one and sew it back, I was outrage, for a month I tried to convince them to fully change it with no luck so I called the head of BMW Turkey, he was so furious with this he got my license plate, 2 days later I get a call saying my new steering wheel is there and they are waiting me anytime I'm free without a apppoinmnet. I know the guy smashed everyone on this so once I got the survey I tried to be a little positive on it. The second occasion the vale scrapped the front diffuser while I was in the car with him! This time they were aware of what can happen so without any incident or calls it got solved in about 2 days. After that I forbid them from giving my car to a vale (I never use vale outside unless it's absolutely necessary) so now the my SA is called whenever the car needs moving, he has to leave everything and move my car and get back to work They are afraid of the surveys, if you know someone from high level management, there is no problem being completely honest as they won't attempt to 'punish' you by delaying the car etc but if you don't, my 2 cent is don't mess with it a lot unless something major happens...

[accendo]

I don't like that they give you a 0-10 spread of options, but treat them as Pass/Fail for their employees. If that's really how they approach it, they should ask the customer the binary Pass/Fail choice and why.

[Luddy]

My Dad was a service manager at a dealer for 30+ years and at that time they did not send out pre survey mails asking for high marks. However I remember him saying even after he retired if I was happy with the service give all 10's if not give them a call.

Probably a problem due to how a lot of people fill out surveys ( 10's if they are happy 0's if they aren't with no in between ) and the averages bmw expects from each dealer.

[Rayscott]

These surveys are very subjective and a 10 across the board even if there was a minor issue is ridiculous. It is like getting a B+ on your report card when you were in school and not an A. No big friggin deal. Nothing wrong with an 8 or 9. I hate being pressured into a 10 every time I get service. However, my dealership is excellent both in sales and service. So I just give them 10's. When my 228 had a wheel issue and I stopped on a major highway the dealership arranged for a tow truck to take it back to the dealership and my sales guy was waiting, after hours, with a loaner. That gets a solid 10 and a letter to the manager.