why low CSI ?

[gman]

Farfinator,

Sounds all too familiar!

Thanks for the insight. As well as I think my operations are run, you are right. The things that you describe happen at every dealer. (just some more than others) When you live in the forest, seeing one new tree is no big deal. The point I'm making is that by the time we perform this job for 10-12 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, some members of our team become blinded to the importance of the "small" things that hold such importance to our customers. These are the things that drive them to the point of irrationality.

While I feel my staff is well trained and knows what to do, the challenge for us is to keep the level of focus and motivation where it should be for the course of a 60 hour week. One slip can cost us dearly. Throw in the 3-5 percent of customers who are truly unreasonable, and our job gets that much tougher.

While our vision is excellence, our mission is simply to provide a consistently high level of service. ( with consistent being the key word)

I'll throw one more thing in. I saw a survey of retail business a while back that stated the number one reason a customer leaves your business never to return is due to an attitude of indifference by your contact personnel. If a dealer is having problems in the service drive, how many customers are you truly losing?

[Farinator]

Closing thoughts;

Rolfe and Sallen1 are absolutely correct,we have trained our customers to have unreasonably high expectations, and Sallen1 also makes a very significant point that MANAGING those expectations is crucial from here on out.

Suggestion:
We've all been to those incredibly boring seminars on "the 4 personality types" and "managing upset customers". I've always thought it would be much more intelligent to try to minimize or eliminate the CAUSES of discontent rather than manage the AFTERMATH!

Accomplishing this boils down to:
1.As Sallen1 states: Control your customers expectations.
*Initiate a simple(1,2,3), easy to communicate warranty policy. Make sure it is in ready view for your customers. Make sure it is an integral part of the delivery process. Make certain EVERY employee is 200% clear! Treat it very matter of fact. DON'T allow anyone to apologize for it! Your customers can sense weakness and will go in for the kill on easy, weak prey. It is what it is and no more..Keep it SIMPLE. You as Service Manager's should intervien on EVERY instance that a customer wishes to push outside the limits...Don't let your advisor's defer to some 800 number. It disempowers them, you and your dealership. Then YOU control that customer. Your success will be a product of your consistency in how successfully you are able to guide customers to your desired end, how well you ensure your sales staff is communicating the info, and how well you monitor and coach and support your service team.

2.As GMAN and I have discussed, Now that you have control of and have defined their expectations, then by God you have no excuse but to meet those expectations FLAWLESSLY! Fine tune your procedures, monitor and coach your staff. The little stuff must not be overlooked. It will count even more.

There is little sense beating yourselves up about uncontrollables like: weak manufactures willing to give away stuff to undeserving customers or those several very unpleasant, disruptive customers that will be perpetually displeased. A much better use of your energy would be to honestly redirect your focus on the stuff you can have more control of and a greater impact on and do the best you can.