Dealer lost Five Star status

Our local Dodge dealer recently (within the last 6-12 months) lost its
Five Star status from DaimlerChrysler. A friend contacted D-C to inquire
what this meant and they would only say that this information is
"proprietary."

So how bad does a dealer have to screw up to lose its 5 star status? A
lot of customer complaints to D-C? As far as I know they haven't
changed ownership. Service experience at this dealer has been mixed.
I'm curious if they will react by working extra hard to regain the five
star status or if it's a lost cause dealership.

The dealer is Burlington Dodge in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Unfortunately the other dealers in the area aren't that great either,
just farther away.

 

A dealer will lose it if his CSI and / or SSI scores are below regional
average. They take all dealers of the same sales volume in the area. Which
could be several States in size, and average out the CSI and SSI score. The
dealer must be at or above average to be certified. and it is based on a 12
month cumulative score. So they end up with three month averages and are
told to improve there score were they are deficiant. To do this they must
document what they are doing to improve score (Corrective Action Plan) the
regional DC reps will review with dealers and council them on what they
actually should be doing to increase there score. A dealer can be below
average for a long time before they pull certification ( Over a year) So
obviously this dealer was not doing what he should have been doing. The
dealer must show his corrective action plan to the reps every quarter when
the quarterly reports are out, and if the dealer is below the average for
each quarter he can prove his corrective action plan is in place, and chang
it quarterly and he can keep his 5-star certification indefinately. As long
as he shows he is changing things to improve his score! So this dealer
wasn't even bullshitting a corrective plan to lose his certification! DC is
playing hardball with this dealer, No 5-Star is a lot of backdoor money from
DC out the door. A dealer selling 100 units a month can get $250 or more per
unit sold every year for staying 5-star certified. No small change to
actually wanting to please a customer.

 

5 star is so easy to get now days, I understand its mostly paper work and
sales. If that dealer lost it......there must be issues there.

 

To lose 5 star status, a dealer either has to intentionally run over a
customer during a test drive, or shoot a customer during negotiations.

 

Does a dealer have to maintain a particular sales *volume* to get/keep
the Five-Star rating?

If so, that could be difficult, because "Find a Dealer" on the Chrysler
site shows only the Five-Star ons -- or it did the last time I looked.

Perce

 

IIRC
sales volume
employee training
customer surveys
all play a part in 5 star requirement

 

No sales volume only plays into what group average SSI and CSI scores are.
If his sales went down alot he would change group size but that is a yearly
sales score and dropping a group size is longer as it would be a cumulative
sales volume over 1 year in lenght, so would take at least two years to be
lowered into the smaller group scores.

That is one of the benefits of being 5-star certified! being on the dealer
locator. It will show all 5-star certified dealers first if you are looking
for a dealer.

 

it means the dealer owner and iot's managers will not be getting extra
bonuses from d.c anymore and if they are not a alfa dealer that d.c will be
closing them in 2 years
alfa means dodge- chrysler- jeep under the same roof