By Robert Farago
October 1, 2008 - 1,448 views
TTAC called this one a while back, when we asked why GM was willing to supply “Mr. Volume” with cars when it was clear to anyone who ever had any dealings with his auto group that Bill Heard was the head of a vast criminal enterprise. Now that Big Bill has been knocked down to size, a bit, formerly silent observers are coming out from behind cover to give GM a right royal pasting. Writing in Automotive News [AN, sub], industry editor James B. Treece is [now] happy to point the fickle finger of blame. “What we do know is that GM was happy to cozy up to Bill Heard when the metal was moving. In 2004, GM gave Heard a Dealer of the Year award and the Jack Smith Leadership Award. The Smith award recognizes dealers who have attained the highest levels of sales and customer satisfaction in their region. Today, though, GM is singing a different tune.” Talk about sour notes… “It’s just individual people owning individual businesses, and it’s separate from the General Motors name,” GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos told AN. “What happens at what dealership never reflects on the entire network.” You’re shitting me right? Treece goes in for the kill. “If that’s true, then why does GM bother tracking CSI scores, and supposedly rewarding dealers with the better scores? If a bad dealer doesn’t reflect on the network, then neither does a good one. It doesn’t matter.” Indeed it doesn’t.
Subscribe to New Content Alerts14 Comments on “ Quote of the Day: “The case of Bill Heard Enterprises Inc. shows that General Motors’ customer-satisfaction ratings are a sham” ”
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POWERED
October 1st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
“It’s just individual people owning individual businesses, and it’s separate from the General Motors name,” GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos told AN. “What happens at what dealership never reflects on the entire network.”
When statements like that get people fired for making them, problems will begin to get solved. This isn’t the utterance of someone inside with an uninformed opinion and no portfolio to speak for public record who happens to get caught by a reporter. It’s a spokesperson who’s job it is to enhance public perception of GM and reflect competitive thinking and policy. Instead, she undermined it with a thoughtless defense of an indefensible position.
However, just because a spokeswoman makes a poor case, doesn’t render GM’s CSR a sham. In my experience, they make a serious effort to get responses and any sub-par rating results in an effort by the dealer to redress the shortcoming.
Phil
October 1st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Something similar happened with the Chrysler 5-star program. With very few exceptions, every Chrysler dealer became a 5-star operation.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
…As someone who worked in the industry for 15 years, yes I agree that the CSI ratings are a joke. Salesmen in our North Jersey Chevy dealership were instructed to have customers bring in the survey when they got it in the mail and receive their FREE GIFT. The customer would then get a coupon for a free oil change, floor mats, tire rotation, or some such thing and the saleman would fill out the CSI and send it in.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:58 pm
These CSI systems are a sham and a half. When the dealers started coaching customers on how to answer them, the system was exposed for the joke that it is.
October 1st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
“It’s just individual people owning individual businesses, and it’s separate from the General Motors name,” GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos told AN. “What happens at what dealership never reflects on the entire network.”
“It was later revealed that Ms Garontakos has a medical condition where she wakes up every morning thinking it’s still 1968.”
October 1st, 2008 at 3:16 pm
This is not just a GM thing though. My friend bought a new Honda recently. The saleslady reminded him to give all 5’s on his customer satisfaction form because “a 4 is treated like a 0 on these things by Honda.”
October 1st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
We have all heard that GMAC stopped floor planning vehicles, we have not heard why or specific reasons.
Could it be that the poor CSI and increased actions from various consumer groups and states incited the pulling of the floor planning instead of finding a way to work with the dealer.
As GMAC pulls its floor planning Alphera Financial (BMW) steps in to replace GMAC how does one explain this decision.
October 1st, 2008 at 3:34 pm
AGR, what’s “floor planning”?
October 1st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
“floor planning” is the industry term for inventory financing. The dealers borrow money for their inventory, they don’t own it outright.
Without floorplanning, most dealers can’t keep cars on the lot.
October 1st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Yes, at Nissan we did the 5 is the only number that counts, the rest are all scored zero by nissan head office line.
Interestingly, at Lexus, it was only mentioned briefly as part of the sales delivery. Generally scores were in the 90%’s without the hard push coaching. (the two I got back out of the 20 or so I sold were 92% and 84% respectively).
October 1st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
” … she undermined it with a thoughtless defense of an indefensible position.”
There is a lot of that going around these days.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:07 pm
We have all heard that GMAC stopped floor planning vehicles, we have not heard why or specific reasons.
Given that this guy operated the way he did for so many years, I doubt his undoing was anything regarding screwing people over. My guess is that he became unable to pay the floorplan fee.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
His undoing must have been a bunch of issues that had been accumulating and magnifying for some time.
For GMAC to pull the floor planning on approximately half of the dealerships of the biggest Chevy dealer on the planet. This decision was approuved high up the hierarchy. To subsequently pull floor planning on the other half, which was going to put the fellow immediately out of business. The decision was again approuved high up the hierarchy.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I’ll tell Susan Garontakos the same thing I told Dodge when they didn’t do a damn thing to help me resolve an issue with my new Dodge truck and their worthless dealer….
“You tell me to take my problem back to the dealer again and again. But it is “Dodge”, in big white letters on the back of my truck, I will see every morning for the next five years. And every time I see it, it reminds me of how worthless your dealer is, and how you refused to lift a finger to correct it, and how now I am stuck paying for this mistake every month. You have lost a customer for life. Congratulations.”