Audi employees' obsession with surveys
 

Wanted to see if this was specific to my dealership or an epidemic within the brand.
I ordered a 2013 Q5, which was delivered March 2013. Once the deal was made, my salesman brought up the JD survey and asked that I give him all 10's since anything less is considered "failure". I found it odd that he would outright ask, but I had no qualms since it was a decent experience. My Q5 arrived with a large dent that I noticed on arrival for pick up. Instead of addressing the issue off the bat, my salesman brought up the survey and pleaded that this had nothing to do with him and asked if I could still give him 10's. The survey was the last thing on my mind and I had no intention of dinging him for it (no pun intended). I just wanted my car fixed. They told me it would take 2 days max and ended up taking a week. When I emailed him regarding the lack of professionalism, he didn't address any of my concerns, but only mentioned the survey and then stopped responding or taking my calls. Needless to say, I never received a survey from audi.
Just had the 5k service this past weekend and it went fine. Didn't take a loaner, but service was completed as promised and service rep was a nice guy. At pick up, he mentioned that I would get a survey and anything less than a 10 is failure and if I could please give him all 10's. My other car is a 2007 Infiniti bought new and serviced at the dealership since purchase. I always receive a survey from them after every service visit, but have never had a sales person or service mgr plead for scores or even mention it to me.
I just find this practice very odd for any dealership let alone a luxury brand. It's also very tacky to sit there and plead for high marks on a survey. Sorry for the rant, but wanted to see if this is common practice at Audi dealerships. If the message to dealerships from Audi USA is that less than perfect is a fail then they missed the boat on receiving constructive feedback to improve customer experience.

Their bonuses are tied into that and my salesman mentioned that to me and my service person also asks if my experience was 10's across the board.

I haven't seen this at all. No survey(s) after purchase from either Audi or dealership. None after 5k service, although the SA said I'd probably be receiving one.

Not complaining, but surprised they haven't sent anything out in this day and age.

There is definitely something to the "10" scores on the survey. The only hiccup in my delivery was the timing....it wasn't ready when my closing appointment was scheduled. Seems my Audi Specialist dropped the ball, somehow, and it was 3 hours late. Afterwards, he told me to expect a survey and to PLEASE give him "10's" or he's in big trouble. This particular fella has been selling Audi for at least 15 years. The law of averages dictates he's has some, shall we say, less than tens reported on the surveys. I would surmise that Audi might pay their Specialists some sort of bonus at model year end if they achieve really high survey marks. 2 weeks since delivery now, and no survey yet.....but I do expect one soon.

Sorry to hear about your ding on delivery and that it took so long to fix. I had no such problems, thankfully, but the salesman did give me the pitch about needing 10s across the board.

I'm a believer in the value of customer surveys if done correctly but this approach cannot give Audi NA any useful information. If, as I suspect, it's used as part of the compensation for the dealership (carrot or stick, who knows?) this kind of manipulation also makes it meaningless.

Steve

Apparently, Audi puts so much emphasis (and supposedly financial reward for the dealer, service folks and salespeople) on these surveys that it's not that uncommon for it to be brought up by dealers. The level of begging varies with different dealers and some will go overboard soliciting 10s from customers. I've seen it myself to different degrees.

My take on this has been that if every customer always gives 10s as requested, the whole rating system falls apart and becomes ineffective. Audi has done this for years and for some reason, with the importance placed on achieving only a perfect score as acceptable, still believes the data from these surveys is valid and useful.

Imagine if a waitress or waiter begged you for a 20% tip, paid to them through the restaurant owner, before, during and after the meal, regardless of service provided. If you complied, would that always result in great service? Would the restaurant owner know what needed to be improved or would he assume all of his wait staff was doing a perfect job (or were great at successfully begging)?

On the VW side of the fence, the surveys were on a scale to 5. 5 was brought up from time to time (on service, don't remember anything on either purchase), but always framed as "what can we do to ensure that we deserve a 5" rather than just begging for the number. That would get really annoying fast and would likely drive me away from that dealer....

Cadillac dealer did same thing to me on purchase then again on my only service to date, all over me for perfect scores. I didn't give perfect scores across the board, not compromising honesty to help them achieve a goal they might not be deserving of.

Survey? What survey? I never received no survey!

... but my salesman did ask for 10's

Our purchase and delivery experience was less than stellar. Not terrible but certainly less than expected from a brand like this. The cynic in me thought maybe the dealership is selective on who it sends surveys to. As mentioned I didn't get one following the 5k servie, so not sure about that one. It wnet fine though.