JD Power Satisfaction Survey

[blueline]

Heck, I will help my salesman and my dealership. It takes about 5 minutes to do the survey.

I privately think that good opinions help a guy to get rare cars and better prices. Nothing is private on the interweb.

I agree!

Whether meaningful or not for what they are supposedly intended (which they're not as Leader alluded to and with whom I agree on that point), they nevertheless play a huge part for the dealership and its personnel, especially for large dealer groups.

Right or wrong, there are bureaucratic types at dealer group HQs, PNA, etc. that most definitely use the rather meaningless surveys to assign grades. So, taking a few minutes to help a dealership and its emplyees who have and continue to treat me extraordinarily well is something I will gladly do.

The JD Power surveys on the other hand, are too lengthy, overly complex, and extraordinarily tedious. In many ways they are geared towards manufacturers - bragging rights, advertising, rankings, etc. I do acknowledge that they will help consumers at some level, but I cringe when I see one and will avoid or ignore them most of the time. (I'd be more apt to respond if they'd make them less of a chore.)

[blueline]

With the dealers openly soliciting “all 10s, please” and offering a free future service for a survey’s positive completion, how can the aggregate results of any such survey mean anything to anyone?

That would definitely be bad and I wouldn't trust any dealer doing that. Fortunately, I've never had any dealer offer anything for answering surveys a certain way. For that matter, the only thing that's ever been mentioned was that I would probably be receiving a satisfaction survey and that answering it would be appreciated. That goes for a whole lot of new cars across a many makes that I've dealt with over a lot of years. Maybe the practice of paying for all 10's is associated with certain geographic areas and/or specific dealers.

The manufacturers shouldn’t base any decisions on their results.

I agree, but unfortunately that generally isn't the case and as consumers we have no control over what those at the top choose to do. Dealer groups and manufacturers put a lot of stock in customer responses and negative surveys have a detrimental effect on the dealers which ultimately effects customers.

On another note, the positive responses, assuming they are warranted, offset the sometimes petty negative responses. There are legions who will complain loudly about anything, no matter how insignificant, irrelevant or unrealistic the complaint is. ("There wasn't enough variety with the free snacks in the waiting room." "The free loaner car wasn't completely topped off with fuel when I picked it up." The free after-service car wash wasn't done thoroughly enough." "My car had frost on the windshield when I went to pick it up from service at 7:00am". Similar examples are probably nearly endless.)

This negative mindset applies to consumers everywhere buying anything and everything.