There are two main tools I use to run our MSO from the 30,000-foot level: the financials and our CSI reports. You can’t be in every location every day, and I don’t think there’s any better way to clearly know what’s going on in your shops without having this analytical data. The financials tell one key part of the story, but the CSI reports fill out the story, giving you a complete picture.
We began making follow-up phone calls to customers ourselves, in-house, years ago when we had just three shops. As we grew (we will soon be opening our 12th location), we instead hired an outside CSI provider. We actually tried two different providers over the years, but currently use TenPoint Complete, and they do a really good job for us.
TenPoint initially contacts our customers by email or text. If that’s unsuccessful after 48 hours, they call the customer. Offering both options works well. Baby Boomers tend to respond more to phone calls, but the younger generations tend to take the survey via email or text. We’ve actually found the comments we get from the non-phone surveys are often a lot more detailed. While the phone agents may only be able to input some bullet points of what the customer is saying, we sometimes get full paragraphs from those responding electronically. Those great, detailed comments help us tremendously.
Every morning, the location managers, estimators and customer service reps all receive the survey reports from the previous day. Then once a week they get a summary of the CSI for the whole week. The reporting is fantastic, and I look at every one. For me, every survey question tells a story.
Customers are asked, for example, if they were completely satisfied with the rental car service they received. That’s really important to me because if we start to see a drop off in the satisfaction with one rental company, we can set up a meeting with that company to try to figure out what’s going on.
We also want their opinion regarding the overall quality of work performed on the vehicle. If come backs are reported, we know there’s a problem with our quality control. Communication with our customers is extremely important so anytime a customer answers “no” to whether they were kept properly informed (or whether they would recommend our shop to others), the estimator or location manager needs to send me an explanation of what went wrong. This helps us constantly improve. The fact that our bonus system is heavily tied to CSI scores also keeps employees focused on this feedback.
Customers also are asked if their vehicle was done on time. If we see this slip below 90 percent at a location, we know there’s a volume or throughput problem. The “communications” question and the “done on time” question go hand-in-hand; as long as your communication is strong, most customers will perceive their vehicle was ready when promised.
And lastly, we want to know if their vehicle was clean inside and out; that tells us how our detailers are doing.
The surveys also allow us to be proactive. The “Immediate Attention” report prompts us to address a customer concern as soon as we learn about it. We want to see both positive and/or negative comments to better assist our customers and staff regarding the overall performance of service as well as the tasks at hand.
I sometimes get asked why I want to continue to touch every survey report, while upper management at some MSOs may just look at weekly or monthly summary reports. I think it’s really important to know what each customer is thinking about our business. The surveys give you a focused picture of what is going on, and are as close to ground level as I can get while still working from the 30,000-foot level.
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