26 May 2021

Balancing CSI scores and sales is a fine art and crucial to 2021 success

Mention customer satisfaction index (CSI) scores to most dealership sales and general managers and an instant wave of shock or horror over comes them.

This is even more pronounced in the used car sector as the greater percentage of used car transactions are B2C and involve a considerable investment and outlay for the private motorist, with a heightened customer experience expectation.

OEM CSI scores can have a quite dramatic effect on dealership profitability and staff pay levels and, whilst they may be considered to be more of a hindrance than a help, getting it right can have considerable all-round benefits. In an industry that has a low return on sales (ROS) figure of circa 1.1%, a 1% OEM reduction in a quarter due to low CSI scores can equal a dealer group penalty of £30,000.

Online CSI increasing in importance

In this feature of Auto Retail Profit, we have often covered response times by retailers to both telephone and internet enquiries, none more so than the last 12 months. Even pre Covid-19, delayed response times to customer enquiries were one of the largest complaints made about motor retailers. Most OEMs allow an 80% success rate in terms of dealer response times before raising a concern or penalty via CSI.

The online supply of information in all aspects of the vehicle enquiry and customer journey is an ideal window for the retailer to reduce the amount of time spent in the showroom answering the same questions. This must be a win-win for retailer and customer and will increase overall satisfaction. Obviously not all enquiries can result in a sale, however all enquiries should be treated equally.

Focus on staff as much as customers

To quote Richard Branson: “People think that customers are the most important aspect of a business – they aren’t – staff are the most important. Look after your staff and they will look after your customers.”

With this in mind we should re-focus the monthly or quarterly one-to-one sessions with staff to be more around their satisfaction levels, rather than largely focus on performance and sales target delivery. Similarly, a badly written pay plan which is overly commission driven will bring out the wrong behaviour in sales staff and erode the customer experience.

Getting the right balance

Whilst CSI scores are an important feature in dealership success levels, we can’t afford to let these requirements get in the way unnecessarily of sales performance due to excess time taken with compliance. Little point in having a CSI score of nine out of 10 if sales have reduced by 5%.

There is already evidence that the April bounce in used car sales is slowing down a little and as such Q3 and Q4 will be more about the overall customer experience and not just the price to change.

Most customers have realistic expectations of the overall service that they expect from a motor retailer. If you can meet and surpass this by the natural feel and ability of your dealership, without being rigidly fixated on the CSI score, you should achieve success in this upside-down trading year.

YOUR ACTION PLAN

• CSI scores can help with all round business discipline
• Online dialogue can help both retailer and customer – be prompt
• Staff satisfaction can’t be underestimated. Keep a measure of this
• Get the balance right – CSI can’t hamper sales volumes

By Ian Allen

Tags: CSI, used cars