Service Satisfaction Index™

Vehicle manufacturers often create a Service Satisfaction Index, typically from data gathered from customer surveys following the completion of warranty work. 

Pied Piper Management Company LLC has found that dealership service department mystery shopping can be helpful to provide a more complete understanding of service department effectiveness for aspects of service business not adequately measured by customer surveys:

1. Service Customers Rarely Decide Not to Purchase.  One of the major attractions of mystery shopping to evaluate the car sales process is the fact that 80 to 90% of car shoppers walk back out the door without purchasing, so it is very important to measure what happens to this majority who do not purchase; not just those who do purchase.  In contrast, customers coming to a dealership for service rarely change their mind and decide not to go ahead with any service.  Therefore, feedback from actual service customers provides a very accurate measurement of service department performance without as much need for service mystery shopping.
2. Most Auto Manufacturers Already Accurately Measure Service Department Performance.  Pied Piper has found from working with manufacturers to improve their service business that plenty of comprehensive data already exists to measure how effectively each dealership completes service work on customer vehicles.  Examples of some of the more useful service data measurements:
   1. % Fixed right first time
   2. % Vehicle ready when promised
   3. Warranty index
   4. Buy-back index; goodwill index
   5. Shop/tech effectiveness %
   6. Service loyalty %

It has been Pied Piper’s experience that the combination of these statistics provides a far more comprehensive (and statistically significant) measurement of a dealership’s service performance than in-person service mystery shopping. 

Even so, there is still value in Service Mystery Shopping…

Even given the facts described above, Pied Piper has found good value in specific service mystery shopping initiatives to be used to accompany the existing service data mentioned above.  In particular, Pied Piper has found that the initial contact with the service department is not usually effectively measured, and is therefore a very good candidate for service mystery shopping. 

For more information about Pied Piper please go to www.piedpipermc.com

Examples of Pied Piper programs:

• Prospect Satisfaction Index® (PSI®)"Mystery Shopping" to Turn More Shoppers into Buyers™.
  • In-Person
  • Internet/Email
  • Telephone
• Defector Diagnostic Survey™ to Learn to Keep More Customers.
• Retail Effectiveness Monitor® to Measure and Improve the Overall Customer Experience.
• Dealer Health Check™ to Measure, Diagnose and Improve the Overall Sales Effectiveness of Individual Dealerships.
• Dealer Performance Bonus Programs to Increase Manufacturer and Dealer Profitability while Paying for a Better Customer Experience.
• "Spin-to-Win" Sales Incentive Programs with Reloadable Debit Cards to Encourage Effective Salesperson/Dealership Behavior
• Other Examples: Facility Evaluation/Audit Programs to Encourage Facility Improvement and Upgrades, Pied Piper Purchase Funnel™, Lease Return Programs, Vehicle Delivery Programs, Co-op Advertising Programs, Point-of-Sales Kiosk Programs, Brand Image Element Leasing Programs, Best Practices and Management Consulting.

Go to www.piedpipermc.com for more details about Pied Piper Management Company LLC.