[Tracker]

Paddy's now 14 months old, and still delight in every way.

I took Paddy in for an oil change at the dealer (hey, why not take advantage of free service?) and the rep took me aside afterward to tell me MINI USA would be calling me to evalutate the service call. I would be asked to rate the dealer service center on a scale of 1 to 5. But, the rep explained, "Anything less than 5 is a failing grade."

"Then why don't they just have two numbers?" I asked, irked that I was being pressured to rank everything "excellent."

Then a few days later I got a call from the dealership, again saying that when MINI USA calls, tell them all 5s or it's a failing grade.

Well **** on that! If they hadn't said that, I might have rated it consistently "excellent," but robbing me of the opportunity to use "good" and "fair" when necessary is very annoying. I'm very tempted to give them 1s out of sheer annoyance.

But they really don't deserve a true flunk. They were nice, handled the job quickly, and even washed Paddy before returning him to me. So what do I do? Use the 1-4 rating system or the pass/fail system?

[Dom]

use the system that mini usa ask you to I guess...

[MiniMan7]

That would be kind of annoying, go with whatever you feel they deserve.

If they say that to each customer, and then call each customer after a few days to tell them again, thats pretty sad.

Adam

[gtt19]

i can offer this as insight/advice....

basically, MINIusa uses the 1-5 system, just like in a typical survey used to gauge the level of satisfaction a customer has with a business.
however, as far as every dealership is concerned, the surveys affect the overall customer satisfaction level in each dept....whether it be sales or service. what MINIusa/BMW tell the DEALER is that they want them to maintain at least a 95% or above. (it could be less in some places...i am using my dealership as the benchmark) so, in this respect (95%) we really DO need all "5's" to maintain a 95% or better, because there is always a repair, or a sale that is worst-case scenario in terms of dealer effectiveness and customer satisfaction, and that takes the overall average down. for example, my dealership requires that on all sales surveys, each salesperson must maintain a 95% or better in customer satisfaction. hence, i usually do encourage my customers to look at the survey in a pass/fail fashion...regardless of the situation, i always try to make sure the customer is as completely satisfied as i can make them. if i do NOT maintain this average, i lose a certain percent of my commission.

short example....i deliver you a car. you are happy, and when MINIusa calls, you rate me all 4's and 5's. say the survey was 10 questions, and you rated me three "4's" and seven "5's". the average right there is 92.5%...i lose, even though you were happy. each number is equivalent to a percent e.g. 5=100, 4=75, 3=50, 2=25 and 1=0 . now, there is a reason people use a 1-5 rating system...sometimes it just seems like it was good, not great....it was bad, not terrible, etc. however, in this arena, i feel like the 1-5 scale doesnt make sense, especially since MINI likes the dealers to exhibit 95%'s or better. to this end, i usually tell my customers to let me know at the time of delivery what, if anything, went wrong...and try to let me resolve the issue right there. and before anyone goes off, no, that doesnt mean i throw free items at them in an attempt to "buy them off".

so, that being said...i dont think the service rep really was trying to be cheap, or pad his numbers. he was just honestly telling you how the rating system works on THIS end of the numbers. so, i guess what i want to say is this. rate us however you want...you've got that right. but, if we didnt serve you the right way, let us know, and let us try to take care of it first! if we STILL are unable to resolve the issue for you, then let it reflect in your rating of our service. noone is perfect...i am living proof of that but as far as the ratings affect us...i wouldnt ever say that i have completely failed someone during the process of selling them their new MINI! food for thought!

[Gryphon]

Volkswagen uses the same system, and I appreciate GTT19's further elucidation. That being said, I think it is imperative that you use the entire 1 through 5 scale and rate the service based on your experience of it. (At VW it turns out that I went with 5's for a long time and wish in retrospect that I had not. Later it seemd that the service got really bad, and I was just WAITING for VW to call and ask so I could deliberately give a 1 and they never did.) It is up to BMW to change the system if they wish; it is not your responsibility to compensate for it. IMO.

One time my dad gave a '4' on one catagory for a recall/service because he was somewhat annoyed that his 2001 X5 had been into the dealer twice that week. 15 min later, he got a call from the dealer asking what they had done wrong/how to fix the problem. I think BMW expects them to get all 5's, so as long as I am not ****ed off I give them all 5's.

-Andrew

[godzappa]

Does BMW/MINI carry out this sort of thing here in Canada?

[teridrag]

I got the call too. No advance warning from the dealer. Did give a couple 4s and a 3, but then I also explained ... i.e. "Was your service advisor knowledgeable about the MINI?" Score: 3, because he wasn't a MINI guy - the MINI guy wasn't in that day.

[Dave]

I filled out one of those once for Honda - when I very first got my car and had to give them poor marks for something. They've never asked me to fill one out since. A little fishy don't you think?!


Dave

[davidac]

Audi was always the same on my Audi too. Give me a 5 or I can't feed my kids kind of thing. There bonuses were all dependent on getting all 5s.