The chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) is coming to Detroit Oct. 6 to deliver a stinging message to automakers: The way they evaluate new-car dealers' customer satisfaction scores is ineffective, unfair and resulting in poorer customer service.

Alan Starling, a General Motors Corp. dealer in Florida and current head of the NADA, plans to deliver the latest volley between dealers and major automakers Oct. 6 when he speaks before the Automotive Press Association in Detroit.

The way manufacturers measure customer satisfaction "is broken and needs to be fixed," Starling said. "It doesn't work as intended, it's lost credibility with the dealers and it undermines dealer operations."

Starling said many surveys that customers are asked to complete after they buy a vehicle or have them serviced are too long, leading to low response rates. Dealers also feel the questions

often deal more with the quality of a new vehicle than the dealer experience. "If the customer is unhappy with the vehicle, the score goes down even if the dealership is doing something right," Starling said. "That's not fair."

Starling cited a lack of attention by manufacturers to the design of the CSI surveys -- noting they usually "farm them out" -- as one primary reason for their lack of effectiveness. "This hands-off approach is no way to gauge something as important as customer satisfaction," he said. "Not surprisingly, CSI has steadily lost credibility with dealers through the years."

A lot is at stake for dealers. Automakers use the survey results to reward dealers in various ways, including financial incentives and additional franchises. In some cases, dealers can lose a franchise if their customer satisfaction scores are consistently low, according to the Detroit News.

"Dealers end up spending too much time worrying about CSI scores and too little time focusing on what CSI is supposed to promote -- customer service," Starling said.

Starling pointed out many dealers are often caught in a no-win situation when customers downgrade them when surveys ask how long it took to complete a vehicle delivery. At the same time, buyers complain when asked if they received thorough briefings on a vehicle's features and the dealer's service operations.

Rochester Hills Buick-Pontiac dealer Russ Shelton said dealers are under more pressure to make quick vehicle deliveries without skimping on customer service. "It's not fair to the customer," Shelton said. "They're not getting the true experience."

Starling says the NADA aims to improve the dealer evaluation process. The shortcomings of CSI "can be fixed," he said, and urged each manufacturer to "take a fresh look at its entire CSI process with an eye toward making changes that reflect the current marketplace." NADA has opened a dialogue with manufacturers in that effort, according to Starling.

"We're not going to tell any manufacturer how to do it," Starling said, "but we're just alerting them to the situation. We get up in the morning trying to make sure people are happy -- happy enough to come to our store."

About NADA

NADA represents more than 19,800 new car and truck dealers with nearly 43,000 separate franchises, both domestic and import.

For more information, visit www.nada.org.