Get the customer-eye view
Get the customer-eye view
A CSI survey benefits the service department just as much as the sales department. In both cases, the feedback highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the department as seen through customers’ eyes. In addition, CSI surveys offer an opportunity to reward employees for exceptional work.
Southwestern Yacht Sales and H&S Yacht Sales (Ranked 17) take a four-fold approach to retrieving service department feedback from its customers. The company developed an internal service CSI survey it sends to its customers following a boat’s first service after the sale. The surveys go out via e-mail and traditional mail after 30 days and 90 days. If they aren’t returned, a phone call is made to get the survey information and to check if there are any problems. For service visits that occur after that first one, the San Diego, Calif.-based company leaves a pre-stamped 3×5 card in the boat to collect customers’ feedback.
All the cards and surveys go to the company’s president first and are then fed back into the dealership’s data processing system to monitor any trends that may appear and to assign bonuses. At Southwestern and H&S, each question on its service CSI survey has a monetary value assigned to it depending on the customer’s answer. The total is pooled and divided among service department personnel each quarter.
The most important question to ask customers on follow up is: “Was the boat fixed to your satisfaction,” according to Yamaha Marine University’s Competitive Advantage Symposium 2007. Other points to hit during a service CSI survey include: Was the work ready when promised, were you kept informed and was it clean upon delivery.
Southwestern Yacht Sales and H&S Yacht Sales’ survey includes these questions plus it asks whether service personnel were courteous and fair throughout the process and if the customer plans to buy a new boat in the next year or two. The latter question is a good way to re-link a potential customer to the dealership, this time through the sales department.
