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Letter to the Editor

Getting More Value from Your CSI

Are you hearing what your customers are saying?

"The paint on the repaired panels does not match the rest of the car. The shop says it cannot be made to match. I find this impossible to believe."

These words, an actual comment written by a customer of a Massachusetts shop, are not exactly what you’d like to see on the comment cards or CSI reports you receive. That’s why it seemed surprising that the shop owner said he was actually pleased when his CSI provider faxed him a copy of the customer’s gripe.

"Yeah, of course, I always dread finding out that we blew it with a customer," the shop owner, who asked that his name not be used, admits. "But on the other hand, I’m not there in the shop all day, every day, anymore. I might not have known that this woman left so unhappy with us. Because (our CSI provider) lets us know right away about negative comments, I was able to call this lady and let her know that I would be getting this taken care of for her."

It wasn’t an easy or inexpensive fix. The shop owner said he personally picked up the woman’s car and brought it to the shop to be resprayed.

"On paper, that job was a money-loser, no doubt about it," he says. "But that woman has actually referred at least two more jobs to us in the couple of months since then. This is someone who left here furious with us, ready to show anyone who’d listen what a lousy job - at least in her mind - we had done, but now she’s telling people how great we are."

Lemons into lemonade

Last month, INSIGHT examined how collision repairers are using CSI as a marketing tool. But this Massachusetts shop owner’s experience points out that CSI’s value goes beyond showing that 95 percent of your customers left happy. It also gives you a chance to get into the minds of that other 5 percent, to find out what went wrong and at least have a shot at fixing it.

"Studies show that if you address a customer’s concern quickly, that customer will become one of your most loyal," Denny Kiyohara of AutocheX said. "They’re even more loyal than someone who left satisfied in the first place, and they’ll often tell other people about how well you responded to their problem. You turn a customer who might have bad-mouthed your business into a walking advertisement."

Kiyohara said he’s found that customers are often less upset about a problem with their vehicle than they are if they feel the problem wasn’t addressed properly. A quick scan of about 100 negative comment cards shops received through INSIGHT’s CSI service confirmed that more than a dozen were made by customers dissatisfied more about how they were treated than about repair issues.

"Just repainting that woman’s car isn’t what turned her attitude about us around," the Massachusetts shop owner said. "She needed to hear that we were sorry for the problem, the inconvenience. She needed to see that we were willing to take the extra step (of picking up her car) to make it easier for her. How you correct the problem is as important as correcting it."

CSI can also help a shop pinpoint needed improvements to avoid similar problems in the future.

"Even if we hadn’t been able to resolve that woman’s unhappiness with our paint work, it was still valuable to get her comments," the Massachusetts shop owner said. "It gave me a way to show our paint department why we’re making them do spray-outs. And it helped me spot a problem I had in the front office with the way one of my employees was dealing with some customers. We fixed our customer’s problem, but we also fixed some problems we had in the shop."

Complaint Trends

What are the most common types of complaints shops receive?

Shop owners using CSI say that many customer "complaints" are based more on miscommunication or a misunderstanding than on something the shop actually did wrong.

"We had a customer who was upset because the radio pre-sets were different when he picked up his car," a Minnesota shop owner said. "He assumed the technicians had been playing around with the radio. It wasn’t something he told us about until the CSI call, but he said it made him less likely to refer others to us. We were able to explain to him that the radio pre-sets go out when the battery is disconnected, and he said he felt much better about the whole situation."

Similarly, a California shop owner said a customer was upset because his truck had sat at the shop for almost a week because the wrong parts had been ordered or received. The customer assumed that since the truck had been drivable when he brought it in, that it had been drivable that whole week, and he would have preferred to have it rather than a rental car for that week.

"I explained that we had disassembled the truck before the error was found so it really wasn’t drivable that whole time," the shop owner said. "He was still ticked that we’d gotten the wrong parts, but he was happy with our work and now understood we hadn’t let the truck sit there while he could have been using it."

A surprising number of complaints have to do with shops doing something extra the customer didn’t expect or want.

"After someone complained, we don’t do any touch-up painting of unrelated damage without checking with the customer first," a New Mexico shop owner said.

Many complaints are for relatively minor overlooked items: a decal or nameplate not replaced, a new windshield washer tank that didn’t get filled, a floor mat left out.

"These aren’t a big deal to the shop, but I keep reminding my staff that a trip back to the shop is a hassle for a customer," one shop owner said. "I took my whole crew out for lunch one payday, and fibbed that I’d left their paychecks back at the shop so they’d have to go back there before they could go to the bank. I let them think about that for a while, then handed out their checks but told them, ‘How you felt about driving back to the shop is exactly how customers feel when they have to come back because we didn’t do something we should have.’"

He said the shop’s detailer now has a checklist to go though after cleaning a vehicle to catch many of the minor things that may have been overlooked.

A fair number of customer gripes have to do with interaction with a particular shop employee. A number of shop owners said that in these types of situations, the shop owner or a different employee will contact the customer to work through the resolution.

"The person they complained about isn’t off the hook entirely, though," a Virginia shop owner said. "I generally have them call or send the customer a note, apologizing for the situation and saying they hope it was resolved for them."

Better Resolution

Here are some general guidelines and tips for customer complaint resolution based on interviews with shop owners from around the country.

Skip the excuses:

It’s easy to fall into a pattern of trying to explain away problems ("The parts weren’t available," "We didn’t know about that," "Our technician missed that"). An explanation later is fine, but it shouldn’t be the starting point. And the explanation should never sound defensive.

"One of my estimators agreed to refund $100 to a customer, but he did it with such a lousy attitude the customer still left unhappy," an Oregon shop owner said. "If you do something for a customer, do it willingly even if you don’t think it’s owed. Don’t do it begrudgingly. Do it with a smile on your face and allow them to feel that you’re doing it because it’s the right thing you do. Either way, you’re out the $100 today, but if you do it right, you’ll keep their business long-term."

Start with empathy:

While an apology is important, it’s critical that the customer also feels that you understand the position they are in.

"I have my staff say something like, ‘Oh, thank you for letting us know about this,’" a California shop owner said. "‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience this is causing, but let’s see how we can make this better for you’"

Decide on a solution:

Make a suggestion for a solution and ask, "Fair enough?" Or ask the customer what he feels is fair. In any case, make sure employees have the power to make a decision quickly. One study found that 95 percent of complaining customers will return if their complaint is resolved on the spot, but this percentage plummets if the customer has to wait or jump through any hoops.

Assure them you’re changing:

Let them know that not only will their problem be fixed, but that you are taking action to see that similar situations don’t occur in the future.

"Customers like thinking they’ve helped you and future customers," one shop manager said.

Go beyond resolution:

Create a "story" for the customer to tell by fixing the problem in a memorable way. Make another concession they were not expecting. Give or do something extra. The cost of giving something away is usually much less than the cost of losing a customer’s future business and the business of all those he tells his story to.

One shop with three locations in Illinois actually has an amount in its annual budget that office staff can use "to soothe things over with customers." A customer who brings a car back because of a problem may receive a couple of movie passes or a coffee shop gift certificate they can use at the near-by mall if the shop will need the car for an hour or more.

"If we’ve really blown it, we’ll send them a restaurant gift certificate, particularly if it’s a repeat customer or one referred to us," the shop owner said.

It’s important, too, to look for trends in the complaints your shop receives in order to make longer-term adjustments and corrections. Getting to the root cause of problems isn’t always easy. One technique that can help you get to the root of a problem is the "five why’s;" you often have to ask "why" at least five times to get to the root of a failure.

Here’s an example:

Why was Mrs. Jones’ not satisfied with our service?

Because her car wasn’t ready until a day later than we promised.

Why was her car delivered a day late?

Because we were waiting for a part.

Why wasn’t the part here?

It didn’t get ordered until the car was ready to go.

Why didn’t it get ordered sooner?

Because we didn’t know until then that we actually had the wrong part.

Why didn’t we know we had the wrong one?

Because the technician didn’t check it when it arrived.

After five why’s, you usually begin to see what needs to be fixed. This can be time-consuming, but CSI can help you spot trends, allowing you to focus your attention on the areas that seem to account for the most complaints.

Other Trends

Interviews with shops about "complaint recovery" revealed a few other trends. Few shops compensate technicians - especially those paid flat-rate or commission - for work done on comebacks. Most shops claim they follow up with every customer who gives low CSI marks, but a few admit that they see some customers as a "lost cause."

"Sometimes calling them is only going to make the situation worse," one shop owner said.

Another disagreed.

"Those few people who don’t want to have anything to do with you again don’t bother responding to CSI," he said. "Anyone who complains is hoping you’ll do something to make it right. They’re telling us what needs to be improved at our shop, so even if their perception is wrong, I feel we owe it to them to try to make them happier."

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