What Would You Do?

[oldhudson]

I’m looking for opinion from you on how you’d handle this situation I’m laying out here. Thanks for reading.

I have a newer Hyundai. After servicing for an oil change or seat belt recall the dealer has pestered me for a review (three robo emails and then the attached). This is a copy of an email I received from the service tech who checked in my car last week.

Hello! This is blah from blah Hyundai. I wanted to personally thank you for choosing us to service your vehicle’s needs!

Hyundai sent you a survey through J.D. Power which is based off of my performance from me to you. These surveys are SUPER important to us. My goal is to ensure that we offered Truly Exceptional service and that it would be Extremely Likely that you would return to us with any service work you need on your vehicle.

If there is ANY reason that you cannot give me the highest ratings, please let me know. For those who fill out the survey, they help me out tremendously and I truly appreciate your time. The survey will ask less questions the more 10’s you give us! I have also noticed it tends to go to a spam folder so don’t forget to check there!

It was great to see you again and look forward to serving you again in the future! Of course, if you have any questions, concerns, or comments to make, please feel free to let me know

Thank you so much and have a great day!

Now from my perspective it’s easy to give a review for a restaurant. There’s so many details to consider: is the table and chair clean; was the server quick and attentive; was the food good; was it served warm etc. But frankly at a car dealer you hand the keys over and they say it’ll be ready in an hour. So if they did the work correctly and it’s ready in an hour, great. But that’s what I expected. It’s certainly not “Exceptional service”. Exceptional would be if they said they needed the car for three days and got the work done in one. Right?

Hyundai is using their great rating to sell more cars, in what I’d call a fraudulent manner. I resent having my arm twisted to provide review. I have been led to believe, from one service tech, (and I do not know if this is real) that they’re pay is affected if they can’t get “highest rating”. Really?

Furthermore, I believe this is not just this one dealer. I purchased the car from another dealer much further away and did complete a review that wasn’t entirely positive and the owner of the dealership called and wanted me to change the review and he’d provide and oil change for free if I agreed.

This type of behavior is not isolated to this manufacturer either. Last year I stayed a few days at a name brand hotel outside Chicago. There were some issues and I won’t bore you with the details but trust me when I say they were things that shouldn’t happen at $300 a night. So I wrote a review with both the good and bad things and a manger emailed me and offered two free nights if I’d change my review!!!

Now I may never use the hotel again, but I’d like to use the dealership because of convenience. How would you deal with this???

[Roberta Moreton]

Just use it again. If they start on you, walk away and speak to the dealership manager. 
I had a similar problem with a roofer. I used Angie’s list. At first I didn’t write the review because the roofer went to get new roof vents and came back with electric ones. No one on his crew was able to connect them. He told me I had to call my electrician to do it!  I don’t have one! My husband had to go up there and do it. He should have told us before buying them.  I didn’t leave a review, Angie’s List called me. I told them the work was beautiful, they cleaned up. No problems EXCEPT the vent.
 The contractor called me! Told me he was going to come to buy some of my woodwork but he needed me to change my review!  I told him I don’t lie for anyone. 
 

[kywoodmaster]

I have found that if you just ignore them they will soon quit bothering you.

[OCtoolguy]

I get those review requests all the time. If I feel that the service was good enough, I'll give them a nine. When they ask me why not a ten, I just tell them there is nobody who gets a ten unless they can walk on water. And if I feel that whatever service they provided was not up to par, I let them know exactly why. For what they are doing to you, I'd let them know that everytime they bother you, the rating will go lower so they better back off before it's in negative territory. I sold tools for 40 years. I bent over backwards at times to provide service above and beyond just the sale of tools. In all those years, I never once got a tip. And now, if you go to an ice cream store, there is a "tip jar" on the counter. The whole thing has gotten out of control. 

Edited January 27, 2023 by OCtoolguy

[Sycamore67]

I am very honest with reviews.  Doctors are the latest to get in on this. I rate appropriately.  If I have to wait an hour and the doctor spends 4 minutes with me, they get a poor rating. A good doctor gets a good rating.

Tipping goes the same way with me.  If I get slow service and cold food, the tip is miserly.  With good service and food, you get a great tip.

Lastly, NEVER PRESSURE ME TO GIVE A GOOD RATING AS IT WILL GO BADLY!!!!

[Scrappile]

I use to feel giving reviews is important. but I go so many for everything buy or do... I also noticed that they are being sent by a second party not the business you dealt with.  I assume there are companies that make there living sending out reviews then feeding back high level feed back to the parent company kinda like you average 4.5 stars out of five this month.. The real company probably do not even see the comments..   This is my assumption, I may be 100 percent wrong.  If it is something like Amazon, I do look at the comments both good and bad.  I learn a lot more things about through the comments than anything else.  I no longer respond to review requests.  If someone pressures me they get a bad review... 

[Hawk]

I too am getting bombarded with review requests, I just delete them. they go away eventually.

Chris

[rjweb]

I just had my Hyundia serviced the other day, got the same email, i just trashed it, I once had a problem with a dealer contacted hyundia direct, they have no control over the dealership, was told that they bought a license to sell there cars thats all, they can not interven with the dealer. I also received another email that I should trade car in for a new model, mine is 2019, 29,000 miles, that is not happening either, in about 2 to 3 months the car sales bottom will fall out and you will be able to buy a new car real cheap compared to today, RJ

[kmmcrafts]

The rating system of today really is a joke.. First of all.. my opinion is.. very few people go to the extent to even give a rating if they had no problems with the service or product they got.. but if they had anything of the slightest issue they'll tell the world about it, many times it's stupid complaints. Had a lady order a Christmas gift on the 20th and I mailed the item out on the 20th in fact.. The website is set up for being able to upgrade shipping to priority otherwise it's just first class and she only paid for first class.. Gives me a 1 star and says Very nice made, mailed out very fast however didn't arrive until after Christmas.. I have the option to respond to these but I don't bother usually because what's point.. 

There is a scam around on etsy and other like sites that have the rating system.. They leave a 1 star and give a good review.. then when you message ( most sellers do because they want to know why there was a 1 star yet a good review ) they say the item was more $$ than they thought it should be and they'll update the review if you refund X amount.. I won't play that game with a customer.. Nope I'm quite happy with my 1 star review.. thank you anyway. Like has been mentioned already.. bribery for a review is dumb and it happens way more than you think. I do the best of my ability to provide good product and service.. If that's not enough then so be it.. If I truly deserve a low review I take it.. and If I don't deserve it.. I still take it.. there are some bad people out there that try to scam or get one over on the next person.. I pretty much ignore the system.. Yes if I get a bad review I ask why but I don't ask them to change it or anything. The one time I did get a 1 star it was left by accident and she changed it as she didn't know she accidently left the 1 star.. Doing the review from a phone on the etsy app there are 5 stars.. doing it on ( some ) handheld devices only show 4 stars.. so the person leaving the review thinks they're giving a 5 star.. I have a handful of 4 stars.. I believe it to be the issue with the handheld.. I'm okay with 4 stars.. so I don't say anything.. 

When shopping on eBay and you look at a sellers feedback.. many of the neutral or negative ones are about shipping issues that are most likely due to the carrier not the seller.. so as I said.. I take those reviews with a grain of salt. It's mostly dumb complaints and fake reviews anyway. 

 

[DRugerH]

I took my car in, a couple of years ago, for an oil change, and an emissions test at the stealership, which I rarely ever do.  Anyhow, I had both services done, and went home.  I started getting the email for review.  I then receive a lot more emails where they leaned in hard on me, but I ignored them.  Then, the service manager called me and pretty much scolded me for not submitting a review and was pretty threatening. So, I got his name, and my review was one star, pretty much reviewing how bad that guy was and how I'd never go back to that stealership for any service.  Well, that took care of it.  I am surprised I didn't get a call back from anyone else, but then, I don't care. 

Dan

[Scroll-N-Skydiver]

17 hours ago, kmmcrafts said:

The rating system of today really is a joke.. First of all.. my opinion is.. very few people go to the extent to even give a rating if they had no problems with the service or product they got.. but if they had anything of the slightest issue they'll tell the world about it, many times it's stupid complaints. Had a lady order a Christmas gift on the 20th and I mailed the item out on the 20th in fact.. The website is set up for being able to upgrade shipping to priority otherwise it's just first class and she only paid for first class.. Gives me a 1 star and says Very nice made, mailed out very fast however didn't arrive until after Christmas.. I have the option to respond to these but I don't bother usually because what's point.. 

There is a scam around on etsy and other like sites that have the rating system.. They leave a 1 star and give a good review.. then when you message ( most sellers do because they want to know why there was a 1 star yet a good review ) they say the item was more $$ than they thought it should be and they'll update the review if you refund X amount.. I won't play that game with a customer.. Nope I'm quite happy with my 1 star review.. thank you anyway. Like has been mentioned already.. bribery for a review is dumb and it happens way more than you think. I do the best of my ability to provide good product and service.. If that's not enough then so be it.. If I truly deserve a low review I take it.. and If I don't deserve it.. I still take it.. there are some bad people out there that try to scam or get one over on the next person.. I pretty much ignore the system.. Yes if I get a bad review I ask why but I don't ask them to change it or anything. The one time I did get a 1 star it was left by accident and she changed it as she didn't know she accidently left the 1 star.. Doing the review from a phone on the etsy app there are 5 stars.. doing it on ( some ) handheld devices only show 4 stars.. so the person leaving the review thinks they're giving a 5 star.. I have a handful of 4 stars.. I believe it to be the issue with the handheld.. I'm okay with 4 stars.. so I don't say anything.. 

When shopping on eBay and you look at a sellers feedback.. many of the neutral or negative ones are about shipping issues that are most likely due to the carrier not the seller.. so as I said.. I take those reviews with a grain of salt. It's mostly dumb complaints and fake reviews anyway. 

 

I am a photographer. Pre covid I used to care more about reviews. Then I learned that if people don’t agree with your politics for some reason, they will weaponize the reviews on sites like Yelp against you.

These days I have really pulled back and only work with certain clients. Those who appreciate my work and the value I bring use me. I once had a family session try to do review bartering. I had the ability to respond or remove. I removed it and told them to have a nice day.

[new2woodwrk]

Not uncommon anymore.

Here's what I do.

First off I NEVER give a 5 star review for ANYTHING! I figure in order to get a 5 star review from me, the item had better do the job itself, be plated in gold or provide me with endless gold coins!

Therefore I always give an honest review. Seldom do I even give 4 stars,simply because I feel 4 stars is the above and beyond the normal level of service. Example: My car needed an oil change, they came and picked up the car, and then dropped it off when it was done! Now THAT is 4 star service IMO!

3 stars to me is a typical good review of any item or service - they provided quality service at a reasonable price.

When I read reviews, I only read 3, 2 and 1 star reviews  as I find them to be the most honest - of course the 2's I read with skepticism.

Edited January 29, 2023 by new2woodwrk

[Gene Howe]

As I see it, unless the review author is quite specific about his/her reasons for their rating, their review is worthless. For me to leave a review, the item or service has to be exceptionally good or, exceptionally bad.