Why Retention is the New CSI

The focus is changing.

Recently, a couple of manufacturers have announced that the CSI score merry-go-round is coming to an end. It appears the "dollar for numbers game" is not as important as the "come back and buy again" game.

The days of the awkward “CSI question” at delivery are over…or are they?

We all know that Retention is the new CSI.

Better CSI, Better Retention...that's the theory anyways. For most of the advisors working in our industry, this concept remains elusive to say the least.

Trying to increase Retention by measuring CSI is like trying to hatch a golf ball by sitting on it. It might make you feel good, but you ain't never gonna get a chicken.

Retention is Relationship driven. Dealerships are not commodities.

We build every customer relationship one at a time. We don't sell things on a shelf.

Yet with CSI system in place, it seems we are constantly comparing them to a can of corn.

By the way, pay plans that have a CSI element to them need to get modified, if you haven't updated them already. Some of the plans out there are quite honestly, horrendous.

They have no relevance to todays market conditions or the average customer in the dealership. Forcing advisors to meet unrealistic and arbitrary metrics is backwards thinking.

And we still need to provide the customer with an avenue to provide us feedback on their service experience. How do we get that done?

I say we do it differently than what we have been doing. I will use a recent experience of my own. I book a lot of travel and as you can imagine, I get a lot of survey requests.

Can I be frank? Long surveys get the same amount of attention as a bug walking on the sidewalk. I suspect many of you are the same. And it's the biggest "secret, not secret" in the industry.

If you don't like long form surveys, and I don't like long form surveys, what do you want to bet that your recent service customer does not like long form surveys?

However, the short smiley face and one or two question survey, gets a response from me every time.

Why? Because I think that the company that understands todays time obessesed society, and makes the effort to ask short, relevant questions about my experience deserves an answer.

To be honest, with all the AI out there, I’m surprised I don’t get more variety in the questions being asked. A lot of them are the same.

You would think that they would have developed a profile of me by now (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and would want to ask different questions to gauge other areas, but no such luck.

I’m sure that it is going to catch up to me eventually. But I digress...where were we?

Ahhh yes...the delivery survey.

We still need to ask our customers how we are doing. And it needs to be done the right way. I advocate for asking questions that get me closer to the customers perception of “perfect service” and not my perception of what I think I did.

And it demonstrates to them I am interested in making our relationship better.

The question that I think meets this need is “On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the best, how was the service I provided you today?” I believe this gets to the heart of the matter.

If the customer says anything like “It was fine” or “Good”, you need to follow up with “Great. Glad to hear it. How can I improve your next service visit? I really want to meet your expectations.”

If the customer says, “It was a 5”, you need to hear what went wrong. Say “I’m sorry I did not meet your expectation this visit. How can I improve so I can make your next visit better?”

This is the part where you just listen. This is the long form answer that people don't mind answering when the question is asked the right way. And if the customer will take the time to tell you what happened, you will get an opportunity to make it right.

Do this enough and you will hear everything you need to make permanent and lasting changes. Then thank them for responding to you. “Thanks. I’m working hard to improve my service and earn your business and your feedback will help me do that.”

Valued relationship.

This is how you find out what works, what does not work and what you need to do to meet the ever-changing expectations of those we serve. This is still a human to human business.

Retention is the new CSI and you still need to ask the hard questions so you can continue to improve.