***Cliffs Notes: Bad dealership experience, don't look forward to Survey. What to do?***


Well, I had a bad experience at the dealership. From first contact, it took a week for them to get back to me (the sales manager, and then he passed me off). Once I ordered, there was very little contact until the car arrived, four weeks ahead of schedule. That came as a suprise. I was asked when I would like pickup, and I said ASAP, but later in the afternoon! It took another four days for it to be "ready". Even then it was poorly detailed. At the MA's desk at pickup, at one point I had to get up and try to walk around and find her. She dissappeared with no word for 25 minutes. At the finance desk, the numbers were different than the ones quoted just days before. The slightly shady finance guys kept trying to "sweeten the deal" until finally we almost got back to were I was quoted. I about walked out (again). Afterwards, I guess it was a rush to get me out and on to more important things, because we just breezed over the car and I was sent on my way. I had to call a few days later to see if I was supposed to get a spare key, and was told it was sitting on the MA's desk. Another week, and I got a key in a small brown envelope.

So to the present, I'm sure I'll be asked for a survey, and at the dealership they asked me to give all 5 fives. I said, "Sure," so as not to deal with the hassle, but you could tell that they were worried about it. The Sales Manager and MA kept asking if I was OK with the changes. After this key thing, perhaps the last straw, I can look back and say that it was an entirely unpleasent experience. Nothing about it was enjoyable. The MA said that if I give a "less than five" survey, they take money out of her paycheck. That's just stupid. No one benifits by my honesty on the survey, and it just hurts someone trying to make a living, and likely doing their best. I think the system is wrong, not the individual people, they all seemed like nice folks. And I don't want to be "that guy" every time I go back for service...

FYI to any dealerships that might read this: people are easily swayed by shiny things. If there had been a cool keychain in with the forgotten spare, sort of a token apology, than I wouldn't have thought twice about the survey.

What to do? Can I decline to give a numerical survey?

 

I'd say my experience was and continues to be a bit less than expected as well. From day one, I had to initiate everything - getting an official price list, ordering, getting status on delivery, etc.

Now that I've had the car for 5 months, I'm still waiting to be contacted about the multifunction steering wheel I didn't get as well as the secret compartment fix. Obviously these fixes have been available for some time and I specifically asked several times to be notified about the MSFW.

If I had it to do again, I'd rate the overall experience as 3 out of 5. I won't mention who my dealership was until I've had the car for at least a year just to give them a chance.

-JL

 

Why not? What are they going to do, put you in jail for not completing their survey? If I had that expeience I would give them the rating they deserved. If they don't want money taken out of their pay (if that really happens) then perhaps they should do a better job. Intimidating customers is not a legitimate way to get good ratings.

 

From what you have stated about your buying expierience, seems you have dealt with one of the less than professional Mini dealers. I had a few issues with the MA's I dealt with, but far better than your what you dealt with.
Well the people you dealt with may well be "nice folks" their jobs are to sell Mini's, and if they want a good reputation they need to make customers happy. If they can not do that, pehaps they should find other employment. I had the same story at the end, please give us a 5 rating, with the guilt thing if they don't, they will suffer financially. Well that being the case, perhaps they should have had that in mind from the first dealings with you all the way thru to delivery.
Mini pays to have the follow up calls and the rating system is there for a reason, you have the option of giving a 1-5, decide what you feel is approiate and give that, nothing more. As for who will benefit from you giving an honest rating.....the next new Mini owner.

 

I agree entirely. We had a similar experience buying a Sienna and the Toyota dealership was dragging there heels fixing a problem found at delivery. They got the appropriate survey from me and I think it actually helped the issue to get resolved a bit quicker with a lot of attention paid to getting things to my level of satisfaction.

If you reward poor performance it most certainly won't change

 

I'm a Mini Motoring Advisor and at the dealership i work at we don't get our pay docked for bad CSI, but we won't get our CSI bonus. You should grade us exactly how you feel regardless if we get docked or not. One thing customer should know is that the survey only grades the MA even when they ask what your overall experience was at the Dealership (you might have a bad experience with the manager or finance manager) but they don't get graded just the MA. So please take that into account when grading us.


Thank You

ElMiniBerdugo

 

Funny you should mention that. I just got out of lockup for doing that very thing. Illegally withholding required information was the charge, or something like that.

I had a good dealer experience, yet I objected to the little game of unless you give us all 5s, it will be recorded as a failure. It didn't seem to be an honest exercise to glean information that could help improve the brand.

When the marketing company hired to do the survey called, I told them that. I also phoned Mini customer service to tell them the same thing. There wasn't any real concern expressed, seemingly validating my thoughts about it being a pointless exercise.

 

(repealed)

 

Lets get real everyone. I'm now on my 4th BMW (first MINI)... and BMW has always played the 5 stars game. You, the owner, only loses if you do not actually get 5 star service. God forbid you get a bad experience... you might as well move out of town because your subsequent visits will be worse if you try to expose it. The system is geared toward positive published results... not end user

 

You logic makes sense, just settle for what the dealer provides and consider the dealer is doing you a favor.

 

If you are worried about how the dealership would treat you for not giving fives just tell the poller that you'd rather not answer. Not answering isn't as bad as receiving a low number.

The girl is correct about losing money for less than 5's. Possibly losing ALOT of money if the score is a 3 or below. By alot of money I mean losing more than her commision from selling you the car. There are bonuses associated with the scores. A 3 (even a 4 in some cases) could cause her to lose the bonuses for all the cars she got 5's for that month. A no answer doesn't add or detract from anything.

But if she gave you a truly bad experience do what you feel she deserves.

 

I dont know if they lose money for not getting 5's... but I am sure the dealership gets awarded for 5's from BMW USA. However, it is a common fact that the system is geared toward getting 5's and leaning on you to give 5's. Try and give 3's and then for your next warranty related visit, try and get a loaner. Try and get that extra oil change in between your service... try and get them to replace cracked interior trim... you will be pegged as a trouble maker. I'm not trying to bad mouth BMW or MINI... I love their cars... but we have no recourse for bad dealerships other than not patronizing them. I have an excellent repore with my BMW SA... and he has been excellent to our family. I actually feel lucky because I have heard so many horror stories of bad service and subsequent bad follow ups because of the rating system.

 

I am not willing to accept bad service from any car dealership? Correct me if I am wrong, but are we not paying these folks thousands of our dollars? Next to buying a home a car is the second biggest expense. By giving your MA a '5' for an experience that was clearly a '2' , you are just enabling a bad situation. The next customer will probably have a poor experience as there is no reason for the dealership to improve. If no one complains or says anything to Mini, how can they improve their quality of service? Hopefully, not getting the money that she would get for a '5' rating will encourage her to look at where she needs to improve or what processes the dealership needs to improve. As for the money, this is how her job stucture is set up. Is this not what she agreed to when hired? I don't mean to come across as uncaring or not empathetic, but performance based pay is not that unusual.
I consider it very poor form when someone asks for a top rating. When you go to your favorite restaurant does the waiter as for a good tip at the end of the meal?

 

Wow, I am sorry that you all have had such a bad experience. I can say that my MA and my dealership went above and beyond in the whole process. I did go in with prearranged financing so I didnt have to deal with that part, but everything else was great. I have never bought a car (and there have been quite a few) where I was treated as well.

 

In my opinion, the few people so far that say live with the service or you will regret it are the type that would also tip the minimum 15% because they feel it is a requirement, even when the service was not deserving of a tip. I have purchased over 35 new vehilces in my life and I have never settled for poor service and never have been sorry filing compliants with corporate if I needed to go that far. If more people would demand quality service on thier investment in a new car, perhaps we would have less people with bad expieriences with the dealerships.

 

Tharkun...

that is not what I am saying at all. I am saying that the system is designed to get 5's. Many times you will not even get the survey if they know you had a bad service. Also, it is great to give 3's or 2's if you had bad service... but expect different treatment next time around. If you have the ability to go to another dealer after bad service, then the survey system will work. If you can call anon to take the survey, then the system will work. Unfortunately, they call you right after the service.... pretty much pegs you.

That has nothing to do with how I tip a waiter or how I live my life. Dont read into it any more than that.

 

Speak your mind, honest and true. A two is a two. Don't worry about service being bad afterwords, I mean, it isn't like they could stop giving you such stellar performance.
Let's say they sell 10 cars a week. When you come back for your first oil change they should have a list of new car customers as long as your arm. An elephant would forget you. Even if you gave him peanuts.

 

My dealership messes up, makes up for it, messes up, makes up for it, etc.
They're busy and it's a business; I know that they mean well. And they do give me shiney stuff afterward...
I would rather that they got things right the first time and I did give a hearty interview to Mini/BMW at one time -----

I believe in honest feedback.

Want a keychain? I have a couple extra...

 

I think you have to go for honest feedback. The system is completely maddening especially if the MA is losing money. It doesn't seem like it's set up for improving any of their systems. They should be hiring an independent company to do the survey and compiling the results so they are confidential and helping the dealers to address problems.

It is also imperative that we are reasonable customers. This is a new and complex car so certain issues are inevitable, but they also need to fix them promptly. My MA went way out of his way to get the service department to quickly prep my car in less than a day after they received it. The factory had put the wrong wheels on the car and no one noticed it until I had paid and was about to leave. I live 200 miles away and they didn't have time to swap my wheels that day. I had to return a few weeks later. It was inconvenient, but they would have scheduled my delivery a few days later if I hadn't been pushing for it quicker. (I also got to drive my first 1,000 miles on someone else's tires.)

Interestingly, the dealer never asked me about the survey or to be sure that I'd give a high score. If they really want to improve service, I think the most effective policy
would be to ask customers if there is anything more they can do to make the buying process a success and not mention the scoring system.

 

My dealer and MA wasn't/isn't the best, but they were certainly better than yours.

My delivery experience wasn't what it should have been because I rushed them to get my car the day it came in, so it didn't get detailed until the next day, and I didn't get to pick it up inside the building like they are
supposed to do. However, they threw in a set of free floor mats to make up for it, and so I gave them all fives!

I say be honest. If your experience was not a "five star" experience, MINI needs to know about it so they can make any necessary improvements.

 

I didn't realize that was a requirement. My dealership doesn't have room inside to roll the cars in there. I was perfectly satisfied picking it up from their car garage.

 

I requested they roll it out in the sun beofre signing loan docs. Thier fluorescent lighint tends to hide things.
Which reminds me, I need to take some pics and post about the blems I found in th clear coat around the windscreen washers. After checking about a dozen othe Mini's on the lot mine had the most severe, others ranged from nothing to more tha what I would except.

 

My dealer was still pulling the plastic covers off and detailing it when I showed up. My feeling was, just gimme the car...don't need no stinkin' ceremony.

 

Since you know they play the 5 star game, learn to play the 5 star game yourself. When you drop the car off, tell them what you expect from them to earn the 5 star rating, but be reasonable. If your car is under warranty tell them you want a free loaner. If it is not, tell them that you don't expect any increase to the estimate. Tell them you want the car when promised and you want the problems fixed. If they don't comply, then don't feel badly about giving them the rating they deserve. You gave them fair warning. Some dealers require that upfront discussion, others don't.

 

i agree with the others if they want the 5 stars they need to earn it. don't do a crap job then try and make you feel guilty to give them 5 stars for their poor job.if the MA is worried about losing money if she don't recieve 5 stars, then maybe she should have thought about that while dealing with you and not after it's all said and done.