Hyundai Motor America says online consumer reviews of dealership service operations are becoming more useful than traditional customer satisfaction surveys.
The reason: Faster feedback enables dealerships to troubleshoot problems quickly and possibly retain dissatisfied customers tempted to switch dealerships, said Barry Ratzlaff, Hyundai executive director of Customer Connect, Blue Link and service business development.
Hyundai's online reviews are handled by SureCritic, a suburban Seattle reputation-management vendor. SureCritic asks Hyundai service customers via a four-question e-mail survey to rate their service and comment on it. SureCritic immediately forwards the reviews to the dealership and Hyundai, then posts the reviews on participating dealerships' SureCritic pages where the public can view them.
SureCritic's surveys are shorter and the feedback is quicker than with traditional customer satisfaction questionnaires, which run about 30 questions at Hyundai and can take two weeks to get back, Ratzlaff said.
Since July, Hyundai has been signing up its dealers on a voluntary basis with SureCritic, Ratzlaff said.