Recently, I received an online survey from Lexus about my dealership's service quality. I took the time to fill out the survey, and noted some areas that may require improvement by the dealer's service department.
The bottom line was that I did not give a "satisfactory" opinion about the dealership.
A few weeks later, I got a call from the dealership's service manager (not sure what his rank was...probably mid-level). He kept trying to get in touch with me and left several voicemails. One of which he stated that he wanted me to call his bosses and to tell his boss that my survey was not a bad reflection on him. And he claimed that my survey has caused him to look very bad in front of his bosses, and that it will affect his pay raises!
As shocking as it was...I made the mistake of thinking he as my service adviser. Since I like my service adviser, I tried to call the head of the service department to straighten things out. What's more shocking.the head service manager did not want to answer my call, he told the receptionist to tell me to call back whomever called me in the first place...in other words.I got the run around.
That made me very pissed.I wrote to Lexus to complaint about this whole process. I didn't get much more than an apology.
As it turned out the guy who called wasn't even my service adviser.he was the service adviser's boss. The layer of managers at the dealership was too complex for me to understand. This is what I gathered so far.it seems that the survey plays a very big part in the employee's job security, promotion and salary increases. Any unsatisfactory remarks or ratings on the surveys can get employees into trouble.
I was not aware of this fact until this matter came up. And I was also very disappointed at Lexus's survey process. I think it is very unethical for them to share my name with the dealership. I have always thought survey was an anonymous way to note complaints and for them to improve. I never thought that my name and comments were shown to every who work at the dealership.
If the dealership always want to get satisfactory responses.then I am not sure why there need to be a survey at all. They all should just give themselves A+ and hug each other for comfort.
I don't know if this problem is isolated to the particular dealership I was using for servicing. Next time you guys get a survey from Lexus.you should think about this.
Btw, the dealership is found in the northern part of the Dallas, TX area.