AbovePrime.

Major typo(s) in my last post, I meant may have, not have may, and -I.

tillithz

right on aboveprime, I think we all could agree we want to be the customer whom gets the 'exceeding expectations'. I think though that is done on a per visit basis for that visit and nothing else. Its when as a customer we expect to get that mug, or earlier time of delivery that we are inserting a unfair expectation, thereby throwing everything off.

Expecting what was promised at time of dropping vehicle off and throwing in (well LAST time i got a mug, and a call 15 minutes early) into it is just plain unfair. Besides what are we going to do with a dozen mugs.

Its the extras that probably bring most of us back.

p.s. dont worry about your typo's theres not one among us that doesnt do it, we all know what was meant.

ACURascal

Black Label:

It's not MY rating system. Again, it's HONDA OF AMERICA that made the commitment to CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT, and that's what we're talking about. Check my post above, and read about that commitment on Honda's site (there's a link.)

What I'm proposing is holding Honda of America, and all its dealers to that commitment. Otherwise, I'm really not getting everything for which I've paid.

This isn't really as complicated as all the haters say it is. The agendas here are so transparent that they border on ridiculous.

black label

I guess my problem with the survey system is that some people are just assholes who can't be pleased. Its because of these few meatballs that love to give low marks for no real good reason that the advisors all coach the customers. They are all gun shy at this point. Any one who has worked in this system has had they paycheck get severely reduced at one point or another because of one of these people.

Should a service advisor not be paid because some asshole who can't be pleased gave them all 1's on a survey b/c there was a finger print on their mirror?

ACURascal

BL

No. They shouldn't lose their hard-earned bonus just because one a**hole gave an unsubstantiated bad rating.

This issue may bring back a point that was raised before about how the rating system is implemented and used by HOA/Acura. In the statistical analysis of any Semantic Differential survey (rate 1-poor 5-best and 3 options in-between), the analysts KNOW that they have to throw out some of the higest scores and some of the lowest scores to make the analysis valid.

If it were my system, any lowest mark would need to be accompanied by an explanation which would then be used to determine if the rating was appropriate or not. In your example, above, if a fingerprint was all that fell below expectations a lowest mark rating certainly wouldn't be appropriate or fair. Any good analyst would throw it out, as he/she should also do with any lowest (or highest) rating that arrived WITHOUT any explanations attached.

ACURascal

Sorry.. .here's the working link to the HOA site:

ohio.honda.com/Company/mfg.c f m (remove the spaces)

Sorry, but the board software filters the extension without the spaces.

ACURascal

Let it go, tillithz. I don't think anyone here but you believe that anything i've said has anything to do with rating the future or the past.

The only thing that has anything to do with the past are EXPERIENCES we've had with Acura, and that is stuff that can't be erased -- nor should it be.

black label

The problem is they don't analyze the numbers. The people doing the surveys aren't statisticians. If some one wants to give all 1's, they can without offering any explanation.

Again I feel that I must restate my intentions here. What Radley did to the OP was flat out wrong, no excuses, no exceptions. The only reason I am posting here is to attempt to explain these surveys and what they actually mean to the employees of the dealership. I don't endorse begging for good surveys or black mail to get good surveys. I fully believe that good service gets good surveys, but I feel it is unfair to give low marks unless there was an actual problem.

ACURascal

BL

I got that, even before you restated. I think you've done a good job letting us know a bit more from the dealer side.

black label

^
Cool, just sometimes when you are 4 pages into it things get lost.

eaglegreen48

This is what irks me here. He gives an honest answer to the survey and Radley says YOU ARE NOT WELCOME AT RADLEY ACURA. You have got be kidding! This guy has lost his bearings. We are the one's doing HIM a favor! He thinks he's talking to one of his kids banishing them to bed without supper. It seems to me if you can't handle negative grades on a survey, then its time to look in the mirror and make a change!

swift22

Attention Weerd,

your at the age of 21... leading me to believe you are a detailer or an entry level tech right outta school.

I am 22 and worked detailing at 3 high end dealerships. I am now a tech at a prviate shop. I would go outta my way for the customer and the saleman. Who does the customer see when dropping off there car, picking it up etc??

Some customers are a-holes...but why is that??? Treat them good, clean the windows, floor mats etc....and do it in 10min. Work up a sweat for the $8+ an hour. They deserve it and you should be happy working on a nice clean Acura etc.


I once hand waxed an NSX for the meer fact it had service work done and it was in the service area attracting attention. I was not asked to....but i enjoyed it and wanted to make an Acura stick out more.


I believe some of you that are in the business world and love your vehicle, apply for a postition and make a difference.

my


Ps- The dealership should be reported to acura and perhaps the better business bureau

conan777

Ok tell me how you would handle this....I took my TL in for a 30,000 mile service last month which is basically an oil change and some basic fluid changes. The next day I began to wash my wife's car. She wanted to go shopping so I told her to take my car. After she pulled out of the garage what do I see....a large puddle of Oil on my garage floor! My wife rarely takes my car anywhere but Thank GOD she did otherwise I would have been driving all over town with oil leaking out of my car for who knows how long. Needless to say I was not a Happy camper! I then had to drive back to the dealership and wait while they figured out that they tightened the oil filter too much causing the gasket to bubble and thus causing it to leak. Now I have motor oil all over the bottom of my car and I was extremely inconvenienced. Did they fix it...yes! and I asked them to completely re-do the oil change (Mobil 1 synthetic) which they did. Had I not informed my service advisor that I had marked my oil filter my guess is that they would not have actually redone the oil change. Anyhow I am reasonable and understand mistakes happen and my time is very valuable to me but I did not make a big fuss about it. I was courteous the whole time. When I received my phone call from acura I think I gave the dealer a 5 or a 6 out of 10. I don't think this was unreasonable. I also did not know that the dealership was notified of the score that we give, I would of thought that it was confidential???????????

Anyway This is the second posting I have read stating that Radley Acura has terrible customer service. You'll never see me taking my business there.

neo1738

i agree, y arent the survey's confidential? if they ask me at the end of the service "is there anything we could have done to improve" i would have told them. But they dont need to see who rated what, if their marks are consitently low obviously something needs to be done, if their consistently high, cudos. my two cents

weeeerd

Obviously, your two cents isn't worth a damn. Because I'm 21, obviously means I'm in detail or an entry level tech? Um, try again. If you've read anything I've said, maybe you would realize that I am a service ADVISOR, particularly the reason I know some much about how the system works and for your information, I didn't just start last week.

There we go again, people judging a book by it's cover. Age has absolutely nothing to do with it. I'm sorry you may feel offended that a 21 year old punk kid will be waiting on you.. the same kid who doesn't have the mentality of a 21 year old, whom the customer seem to enjoy coming to, and someone that would run circles around apparently more then 3/4's of your advisors out there.

try again.

acuraTHREE

I am still waiting to hear from Karen Radley. I will not take my TL back to them unless we get answers. Do you think they are aware of the hail storm one simple "your not welcome here" created? Do they want to close shop and habe Pohanka be the only game in town for the DC/VA area?

weeeerd

How would I have handled the situation? I would've gone above and beyond anything I could make possible and I would basically leave that decision up to you. Can I refund your entire service? No, that's not possible, however what you needed, I would do as long as it was within reason.

Should you ever have to take your vehicle back in for a come-back? No. Does it happen, sometimes. Not everything is always 100% perfect and works out the way we would like it to. 1 car leaks oil out of the 100 oil changes you've done, I'd say that is a pretty good percentage. Should that car have left without leaking oil, you bet your ass.

I totally agree that you just can't make some customers happy. I don't owe anyone a steak dinner nor do I feel that I need to go above and beyond every single persons expectation EVERY single time. I completely understand you bought a luxury vehicle, however so did X amount of other people that purchased an Acura, a Lexus, a MB, etc.

If you'd like an example, here's one. My friends father purchased a z06 vette from a Chevy dealer. When he takes it in for service, they do not wash (hand or car wash) nor do they vacuum his vehicle. You say "but he bought a chevy" and I reply with he spent more on his car that any of you did on your vehicle.

Is it nice to have a clean car, yes it is. And for the most of you, you guys are somewhat of car guys and understand part of it. You guys aren't the woman with the MDX who has 3 kids with coloring books, crayons, cheerios, and a 1/2" thick layiering of dust/dirt all over your carpet and dash everytime it comes in.

weeeerd

Just because I need to quote these again.

First off. The customers are treated good (obviously, your dealers will vary). The floor mats do get cleaned, as well as the seats and under the mats. The windows? Give me a break. Everyone that comes in for an oil change is in and out within 30 minutes. How am I suppose to spend 10 minutes cleaning everyones vehicle out when we have other cars coming in? Do I hold up the person who just pulled in to finish the "detail"? I can't do that. I also can't hold up the car for 10 more minutes trying to get the other person on there way. That doesn't leave much time for the tech to do the oil change.

Also, congratulations on waxing the NSX. The guy must've been layed back. We have a couple NSXs that come in that do not get driven nor touched except by myself, the service manager, and our master tech who has worked on Acura's for 20 years.

Sometimes, with the customers that come in, it's best to do as little as possible. Whose to say that NSX couldn't of came up with a scratch on it that may or may not have been there before. Again, you may have seen it but the customer is ALWAYS right so try explaining that one. If you wouldn't have waxed it, you have just been let off the hook as you didn't touch the vehicle. Or maybe he is like one of our guys that is VERY nitpicky about who waxes his vehicle. Maybe you used the wrong wax or the wrong microfiber.

See where I'm going with this?

weeeerd

Email survey confidential? It's possible. Phone survey, definitely not. Like the other guy said, I needed to know who I'm dealing with when I get a bad rating on a survey. If I get an 8 and have no idea who it's from, how can I improve? Was it an 8 because I just sucked that bad or was it an 8 because "it was just an oil change" or "it was to expensive"?

I'm sure Acura put there heads together before doing this as opposed to just throwing the surveys out there and letting them get scored by randoms.

weeeerd

Definitely not. I had quoted a post above that shows I am not siding with the dealer. If I had to go back to a dealer, I would find it quite hard to give them a good rating, regardless if you're 10 miles or 100 miles from the dealer.

A couple other quick comments. We do occasionally road test vehicles. During certain B inspections, we need to verify the wheels are balanced, the brakes do not pulsate, there is no noise coming from the suspension. All the tech's have different routes. If you have 7 more miles on your car then you should, be greatful, that shows the tech took sometime and spent it on your vehicle (again, only speaking from OUR dealer).

Our guys don't take your car to lunch or out for a joyride. Honestly, probably 1 of you actually owns an NSX, which is the only Acura that I would love to be out joyriding it. These are the cars we seen DAY in and DAY out. I do not need to go out and drive your RDX or your TSX or even your RL for that matter. We have 100 cars on the car lot, if I felt the need to drive an RL, I would take one of those.

However, after a while, Acura is just another brand of car. I don't think twice about it while I'm driving one, whether it be to home, a test drive, etc.

JLTSX07

I've had similar experiences at local dealerships. I just recently had one at Acura. Upon talking to the service manager, and letting her know some of my concerns in regards to some issues that I had, she was more than willing to work with me. However, I am pretty sure that I can attribute the delays to the fact that I am young. I think, however, after going in there after work wearing my Brooks Brothers suit and my Rolex watch, they decided that perhaps I was a force to be reckoned with. Either way, my issues were cleared up, and I got a B1 service for free

eaglegreen48

If I get an 8 and have no idea who it's from, how can I improve? That's very wise and I agree with your point. But you may be in the minority. The guy who says "you're no longer welcome here" is not thinking about improvement. He's not seeing the link between good customer service and his wallet.

eaglegreen48

Well, you won't find me in Brooks Brothers, but its a well known fact that they way you are dressed makes an impact upon whom you are dealing with because its the first impression they get and the first judgement the make. The second judgement comes when open your mouth.

weeeerd

Sometimes you would think so but that doesn't happen around our dealer. I don't care if you are wearing a suit or if you come in with shorts and a t-shirt. Maybe I just know better as we have important individuals come in all the time that, by looking at them, you would have no idea they own a business or have money coming out of there ears.

bballernva

Talked to Matt at Radley on 10/16. He said he wanted to make this right. I received comp B1 service. The service was very good.

AbovePrime.

Well, thats OK, but I wouldn't want to go back. Nice that they are trying to make it right.

ACURascal

I would only accept his offer to make it right after seeing an open letter to all of his employees instructing them that this type of behavior will not be tolerated in the future. To fix this, he has to fix his company's culture and that starts with him.

With a letter, Radley employees who really want to do the right thing will be able to do it, and they can point to the letter as evidence.

nbtx

Apparently someone at Radley reads this board. Even if they have cleaned up their act they still have to earn customer loyalty by performing 100%. Begging for 5s is unacceptable. From my early days in retail: "The customer is always right". The corallary to this is: "The customer has the money and we want it."

sasair

Don't think it matters much if someone from Radley reads this board or not. Enough of their customers do read this board so it will get back to them one way or another. If they were smart they would visit this forum on a regular basis.

ACURascal

Yeah, they could read the board, or pay some consultant about $10K in a couple of years to try to figure out why they can't sell service anymore.

SixSpeedSaber

what a burn, i feel u

01clsstock

too little... too late

Type-Superman

hmmmmm, maybe if they weren't so bitchy about it, we WOULD give them a five on the survey?

you MUST (i mean MUST) earn everything in life(including 5s on customer service surveys)

nothing comes free (unless you've won the lottery)

ncinirator

If I had joined this site and read this I would not have bought from Radley. The posts were put up while I was looking at the cars I wound up buying.

The salesman was nice, but had my girlfriend and I sitting and waiting for 4 hours to get our cars. He knew the day before that we were coming to pick them up in the AM. As a matter of fact, he started calling me at 0900 in the morning to make sure I was coming. My girlfriend and I didn’t get financing straight at out lender until around 2:30pm. We didn’t get to Radley until around 3:15’ish and the salesman sat us down while we waiting for the cars to get detailed and what not.

FOUR HOURS later when my girlfriend gets in her 06 TSX she notices the passenger rear door trim was broken AND her car and my 07 TL were on empty. No gas. To cut this short, parts said they would call her when the replacement trim comes in, and we were given vouchers to fill up at the gas station around the corner. My TL took almost 17 gallons- they had me drive outta there on empty.

No phone call or e-mail for a survey yet…..I called to have the car brought in for a weird buzz coming from the font dash and to straighten out the alignment that was off since I bought it, I was told the loaner cars wont be available until the end of November. WTF!!!!!!!!! Guess I’ll be going to another Acura dealership, if I can find a closer one. I’m, in Charles county Maryland.

sasair

Karen Radley Acura may be closer to you in Woodbridge but other than that, you'd have to go to Chevy Chase Acura which is definitely further away.

ACURascal

umm... lottery costs a dollar.

neo1738

my theory is if you dont know what is wrong, there is more wrong than you can think of. why should i have to tell you what is wrong every time? why cant i get a decent service? MOST IMPORTANTLY why should you find out from a SURVEY why i was not happy. Dealers have the burden of correcting problems before the survey. A simple, how was your service visit today? Is there anything else we could have done to make it better?

This way when a bad survey comes in they dont railroad the clients because there shocked to find out the customer wasnt happy. I say all of this because of my similar situation. I had a ligitimate set of complaints, and the OWNER tried to tell me not to come back. After I notified Acura corporate he changed his tune greatly.

ACURascal

I have to say I LOVE THIS POST. In its honesty, it takes us back to a simple question of whether the dealership's employees are paying attention to their customers.

Honestly, if your customer is told he'll wait two hours, and you haven't gone to find him or her at two hours and 1 minute to apologize and make arrangements to get them transportation and a loaner or to get their car finished and out of the shop, there really is more wrong than a survey will find.

Thank you neo.

Bearcat94

I am (as usual) late to the party.

And nothing against weeeerd, just that those comments tend to display the weakness in the system Acura has set up and the lack of genuine leadership at the dealer level.

My :

Sorry, but it is.

The Acura point of view that anything less than 10 is failing is just plain, damn dumb-ass, corporate

It's not my problem Acura can't count and you shouldn't expect me to bail you out.

If you don't want my opionion, don't ask. If you do want MY OPINION and I say you're a 7 or an 8, then you are.

Maybe I think 8 if pretty F'n good and 9 is OUT F'N STANDING. 10? Maybe when you ACTUALLY walk on water.

Maybe on a 1 - 10 scale, 5 is average and 6 or 7 is ABOVE average.

What more do you expect for an oil change? Out-F'n-Standing because you did your job? Better than Jiffy Lube? Well then you're on your way to a 7 or an 8, assuming Jiffy Lube is a 3 or a 4 or a 5.

But DON'T tell me what my opinion of you *should* be. You asked the question; You have to live up to MY expectations.



There's ALWAY something you can do. Be creative. Here's a couple of quick ideas:

- Great me promptly and by name if possible;
- ALWAYS Treat me with respect and an appropriate amount of deference;
- Point out anything you might find while servicing my car (for example, talk to me about what you found on the 24 point inspection);
- Complement the care that I give my car;
- Before I go, ask if there is anything that you could've done different or better;
- Show me a feature that I may not be familiar with (like Range on Page 2 of the TC or 2nd Gear Start with Sport Shift).

These are the kinds of things that'll make a routine Oil Change OUT-F'N-STANDING.

Then, if you remember me, my car and our last conversation when I show up again in 6 months, well then, *thats* Walk On Water territory.

weeeerd

I'm not even really sure on where to start with this one. The survey scores. I'm sorry Acura has such a high expectation of what we are suppose to do and they want to see we are doing what we are suppose to. If you have an issue such as oil leaking from the car afterwards, you waited for an hour, your car wasn't washed/vac'd... then yes, do NOT give me a good score, I did not deserve it.

When 90% of cars that come in have less then 50 thousand miles on them, chances are we don't need to go over the inspection with you. If we find something that needs attention, why would we not bring it to your attention. Warranty or customer pay, what difference does it make? If it's warranty, the guys still gets paid to work on it(although, usually alot less on what warranty pays) and the dealership still makes some money.

If you can't hand out a good survey for an oil change (where everything was done correctly and you weren't inconvenienced), take your car somewhere else. Take it to Jiffy Lube, tell them you want your car washed and vacuumed because Acura does that for you. I can almost tell you what there reply is going to be. If you feel the Jiffy Lube guy is just as qualified, why spend the extra 7 dollars on an oil change.

If you haven't realized, people are scared when you ask them a question. I've asked people before, what could we have improved upon. "Nothing the service was just fine" and they give us an 7 on a survey. Obviously, the service wasn't that great to get an 70% while you tell the CSI callers that your unhappy.

If I've missed something, please feel free to let me know. When you actually have some sort of idea of how CSI scores, Acura, and dealerships work.. then go from there with it. Maybe at Kia or Hyundai, they let there franchises by with 75-80% on scores, unfortunately, Acura does not. I guess it's beating a dead horse, no matter what you do, you'll never make some people happy.