Maintaining Chrysler Five Star Rating

In the auto industry, one of the most coveted certifications is the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep five-star rating that the Chrysler company gives to its best dealers. Chrysler contacts those dealers’ customers directly, asking them about the quality of the sales and service they received. For the dealers that meet those standards, it’s a significant marketing benefit.

"It’s a ton of money for us in advertising just by Chrysler alone," says Dave Burford, the business development manager of National Dodge. "The five-star rating is a better, proven way of doing business, and if you’re going to buy a Chrysler, a Dodge or a Jeep, you learn very quickly to buy from a five-star dealership."

To make sure their rating is safe, National Dodge anticipates Chrysler’s customer survey by issuing one of their own. Using Key Survey, they’ve created an almost identical survey to the one that Chrysler issues - except that it’s sent immediately, and allows National Dodge to rectify any problems before the customer received Chrysler’s one.

Electronic surveying is easier and more efficient than any other way.

"We use a program called contact management as a follow-up system for customers," Burford says. "When we got started, I couldn’t see having to call everybody or send them a letter, but I had their email addresses. So I started looking for electronic survey software."

Key Survey was Burford’s choice because it was easy to use and totally customizable - he could create an effective duplicate of Chrysler’s customer survey, asking the same questions in a very similar format. And it was easy to use.

"It took me about thirty minutes to learn," he says. "I’m not really a technical person, but it’s really pretty simple. The tech support was good - I’d call you guys and you’d answer my questions right away."

Key Survey has the shortest learning curve of any comparable product.

The survey itself is short, taking most customers less than a minute to complete. It asks about waiting times, service quality and problems, pricing and vehicle delivery times, and goes to any customer who buys a Dodge or takes one in for service - between 250 and 300 people a month.

Like many Key Survey customers, Burford appreciates the email reminders feature. "I learned that if the person doesn’t respond, it can automatically send the email again. That’s improved our response rate dramatically," he says.

Email reminders sharply improve your response rate - without adding any extra work to your schedule!

When the survey data comes in, anything that receives a low rating from the customer receives a problem report, which the departmental manager is required to fix - the general manager receives the same report. By the time the customer receives Chrysler’s five-star survey, their problem should have been rapidly fixed long ago.

"And we’ve received some recommendations that the customers have made about service - for example, a lot of them wanted access to wireless internet while they’re in here getting their car serviced. So we just opened up wireless internet for them. It’s making our service better in ways like that."