Chrysler giving five-star dealers unfair advantage on web?
If you've whittled your new car purchase down to a new Chrysler product, you may find yourself using the company's website to learn more about its offerings. When you've picked the car that's right for you, you might then take advantage of the Chrysler website's "Find a dealer near you" link to help, well, find a dealer near you. But the results won't necessarily show you the closest dealer to you, or even the one most likely to have the model you're interested in. What you're going to get is a link to the website of the closest Five Star dealership instead. Apparently results on Chrysler's internal dealer ranking system has its rewards. At least that's what Automotive News found in this latest report.
What they found is that although you will get all of the nearby dealers listed, you'll only get a direct link to the closest Five-Star dealership time after time. For the others you'll get a simple splash page on Chrysler's server that simple contact info and hours of operation. The Five-Star dealers don't seem to mind, but as you might imagine, others aren't too happy. Sub-Five-Star dealers are complaining that they aren't getting a chance to respond to inquiries as quickly and that customers can't use the same tools available to the top dealers. They say it's ultimately the customers who are suffering, and they're right. Chrysler's Five-Star dealers say that the others have had nine years to get themselves into compliance and earn that Five-Star rating.
This internal squabble is really just getting in the way of interested consumers buying a Chrysler product. Yes, all dealers need to improve their level of service, but that's a tall order for a dealership with one hand tied behind its back.
[Source: Automotive News, sub. req.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Don 2:33PM (8/20/2007)
Just what Chrysler needs right now...intra-dealership squabbling and back stabbing.
Lovely.
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robz4 2:46PM (8/20/2007)
Really not fair play...I guess this is just the beginning of Chrysler-Cerberus plan to reduce the number of dealers. Stick it to the little guy.
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d-x 5:12PM (8/20/2007)
I think this has been happening for longer than the last couple weeks...and do you not think it's a good thing that Chrysler is directing customers to it's BEST dealers?
Would you rather go somewhere and get sub-par customer service...or drive the extra 10 minutes and get the best service available?
geo.stewart 7:44PM (8/20/2007)
Having been helped at 5-star dealers and non 5-star dealers, if I were Chrysler I would only want to send them to the best dealers.
On separate occasions, I have left a non-5star disgusted only to go and buy a pentastar car at a 5-star dealer without any issues whatsoever.
I, like most of the folks on here, probably get asked questions when friends go to buy cars. I'm not going to recommend somewhere with a questionable record.
In this day and age, whether they have the right car is irrelevant. There is enough horse trading and megadealers that they can get the right car.
Taylor 10:45AM (8/21/2007)
I also think that Chrysler is trying to change their image top to bottom. If certain dealers aren't up to par with a 5 star dealer a little farther away, then the customer in the long run will have a better experience and a better chance at the 5 star place over some lower tier store.
Like they said, these sub par stores have had 9 years to get in line and they have failed. Shouldn't customers be diverted from bad dealers?
robz4 10:40PM (8/21/2007)
All I am saying is that if Chrysler is not happy with the performance or service of his non 5 star dealers they should close them down or buy them out. Is just not fair to play games with them. Just think about this ..you have a brother or sister than is better at school or has a better job than you do...How would you feel if your parents were diverting all of their money and attention to him or her and ignoring you?...pretty shitty ...right? That is my point.
Ineedatracknow 2:51PM (8/20/2007)
Yeah, that's really messed up.
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iQuack 3:00PM (8/20/2007)
I see nothing wrong with rewarding the best dealers and encouraging crappy dealers to give better service or close down.
If I were buying a Chrysler or any other car, I'd want to buy it from the most reputable dealer and/or the dealer with the best service department, etc.
Chrysler (along with GM and Ford) is trying to reduce the number of redundant dealers. The company has every right to favor the best ones.
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sw 3:09PM (8/20/2007)
Nine years to meet the targets? I don't quite know what these targets are but my local Chrysler dealers have met them all and are 5 star dealers so they can't be impossible. Shape up or ship out, sounds to me like Chrysler is trying to improve it's image and purchasing experience. And it has every right to do so.
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AAM 12:17PM (8/22/2007)
I think it was a "5 star" dealership that wanted more to fix my car than I spent to buy it!
BTW it cost$15 to fix it for inspection, price quoted at said dealer $1750!!!! I blame Daimler because this was 2 years before the Cerberus deal. Come to think of it, I STILL haven't spent $1700 to keep the car on the road!
LMAO
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Jay 3:27PM (8/20/2007)
What exactly are the requirements for becoming a five-star dealer anyway? My thinking on it is similar to sw's. I seem to remember that in the podunk town I grew up in, the Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth dealership that was there in the early 90s was not only a five-star dealer, but according to some literature printed up by Chrysler, was one of the best in the region. All this despite the fact that they were in a small agricultral town of 6,000 people and the dealership building was as big as a Photomat and maybe had ten cars on the lot at any given time.
That always made me feel that the prestige of being a five-star dealer was quite dubious.
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Ed 8:39PM (8/20/2007)
From the 5 star website
"To earn the title of "Five Star," Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep® dealerships must first meet specific requirements set by DaimlerChrysler in the areas of customer satisfaction, employee training and customer follow-up. For example, a Five Star dealership must follow up with every sales and service customer to make sure they are completely satisfied. This is how you can be assured that, at a Five Star dealership you the customer, are in the driver's seat."
Call some customers and ask them to say "completely satisfied" basically. You have to pay them to sign up, they set some goals, and at the end of the year you can pick some stuff out of a catalog if you met goals. I swear marketing is murdering most industry. What happened of just taking care of people and not loading mailboxes and voicemail with surveys.
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Tom 11:32PM (8/20/2007)
This is their tacit way of telling the non-5's to go away,please.
Toyota has great control of the number of dealerships in a given area. It keeps each one viable through
non-competition. Chrysler is seeking this business model.
Chrysler is a mess, and Chrysler knows it.
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Toledo Guy 4:30PM (8/20/2007)
I believe the facility itself is tied to the standards for 5 Star.
There are 2 Jeep dealers here in Toledo. One in Sylvania Twp, one in Perrysburg. If I'm not mistaken the one in Perrysburg shares facilitiies with non-Chrysler makes. That combined with their less than stellar reputation (somewhat high on the sleaze meter) is probably why they are not 5 Star. I've had my share of troubles with the 5 Star dealer (service work done after they were told not to, not willing to find the car I wanted, only wanted to sell what was on the lot), and I won't use them anymore, we drive 40 miles to Woodville to a small dealer who works hard.
Anyone know of a 5 Star dealer who has actually lost the certification? Programs like these are useless if there are no year over year improvement standards.
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jw 6:28PM (8/20/2007)
i was a chrysler dealer and they took 5 star away from underpreforming dealers over 1 year ago..this isn't new..they also took away cash incentives , ability to buy off lease/ rentals/repos used cars from there auctions.. also they increased rents on there leased properties to these dealers.they are going to force 100's of dealers to close which means less competion and more profit for the big guys..buy the way...the consumer will be paying more too...many dealers are in class action lawsuits with chrysler about this unfair practice...
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Brad 7:03PM (8/20/2007)
Yes I was also a Chrysler dealer for many years. A couple of dealers in our region had their 5 star status revoked. You could go on a year probation if you continued to not show 5 star procedures or various scores were not within 5 star range.
The biggest problem I would see is that we could not get a lot of the totally satisfied customers to send their surveys back in. When that happens just a few borderline surveys will negatively impact your scores. I knew of a dealer that was telling their customers that they had to bring their surveys back to the dealership and they would fill them out which is clearly a violation of Chrysler procedures.
AZMike 6:42PM (8/20/2007)
Toledo Guy,
we had one dealer group here in the Phoenix area who did lose their Five-Star certification for three years. they just got it back about six months ago.
they are indeed a sleazy, high-pressure place, and regularly did less than honest business.
I think not listing a non Five Star dealer on the Chrysler web site is a great idea. it has nothing to do with "weeding out" dealers like some suggest, but more to do with rewarding dealers who work hard to do a good job.
the same thing could be said with Chryler's recent decision to only allow dealers into it's used car auctions that buy a certain number of NEW cars.
this has been a major problem in many small markets where dealers would have five or ten new units in stock, and 100 late model used cars. the factory doesn't make any money on the used "program" units it sells at auction; as a matter of fact, they lose millions.
the dealer/factory relationship is a two-way street (and this goes for any dealer/manufacturer, not just Chrysler), and both parties have to give and take.
the domestics generally have a much better factory/dealer relationship than many imports, especially Toyota. hell knows no wrath like a Toyota zone rep with a vendetta for a particular dealer.
AZMike
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jw 7:15PM (8/20/2007)
az mike: your full of crap!!! chrysler has the worst relationship of all manufactures with the dealer body..it's there way or the highway.. especially with there credit co.. no flooring/ or a+ paper and your cut off..buy all your allocation or no bonus $$..sell your monthly objective or no bonus $$then they just send you cars and said you ordered them!! it's crap!!! hope bob fires all of those worthless idiots......
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AZMike 7:32PM (8/20/2007)
jw,
I speak from experience, as a Dodge dealer for ten years. I'd like to think I'm not "full of crap"; I took the dealership from selling 9 new cars per month to over 100 within two years. and it wasn't just me; it was all the great people that worked there, who put in over 100% to make it happen.
if the issue you're referring to is the sales bank from 2006, you're right. but one experience does not comprise everything.
we had a great relationship with Chrysler Financial, and they did not floor us. every lender would certainly like to only get A+ paper, but Chrysler would always buy deep for us, even into D paper.
I've always found a big portion of the problems with lenders center around the large egos of either the dealership general manager, finance director, or both.
AZMike
Ed 8:57PM (8/20/2007)
I agree they are not good with dealer relations. JZMike you've probably had success due to people working with you which really is what makes people buy from you. The point at hand is should Chrysler be trying to put the squeeze on the non-5 star's? It's like McDonalds telling you to drive across town to the other McDonalds for fries because their surveys are better. Is that a good way to do business? Won't the bad businesses just weed themselves out like they normally do? Bad service and sales generally don't perpetuate more sales and service.