What’s the right way to deal with negative customer feedback? Opinions may differ, but I think everyone agrees that you shouldn’t send the following e-mail to the customer:
mr [redacted]
i am terribly sorry that you have had such a horrible experience with my dealership
by far, you are the most unsatisfied customer that i have had in my 4 years as owner/gm of this store
in 2011, [redacted] ford was awarded ford’s presidents award for customer satisfaction
i think one other dealer in the state won this award
the 7 calls and voice mails you received were simply me and my employee’s trying to respond to your concerns
[redacted] is one of the top salesman in the nation in customer satisfaction
at this point, i am content that we are simply not capable of making you a satisfied customer and respectfully ask that you never return to my dealership as you are no longer welcome here
take care and good luck with you future automotive transactions
This was evidently sent from a personal e-mail address, so even the sender probably knew it wasn’t an appropriate response. Heck, it’s not even clear it was really sent by the owner and not a vengeful salesperson.
A couple months ago I wrote about what to do if your survey process is broken, as surveys seem to be in much of the auto industry. One symptom of a broken process is the attitude that employees see negative feedback as punitive rather than an opportunity to learn and improve.
In this particular case, perhaps the “learning” can start with basic grammar.
