One of the goals of customer satisfaction research is to help companies retain their customers. But as a friend of mine experienced recently, it can also be used to drive them away.

Like many young married couples with a growing family, my friend and his wife decided it was time to replace one of their cars with a brand new minivan. They visited several dealerships during the evaluation phase, looking at vans from four different car companies. When they settled on a make and model, they chose a nearby dealer that actively promoted the quality of its service.

Their salesman seemed like a nice fellow. The sales negotiations went reasonably well. With no trade-in to haggle over, the process was pretty simple and my friend and his wife settled on what they felt was a fair price. The salesman promised them they’ d be driving their new minivan in six weeks.

After six weeks elapsed, they didn’t hear from the dealership. Well into the seventh week my friend called for an up date on the vehicle’s status. He was told to direct inquiries to the salesman, who was unavailable at the time. He left a message. After two days the salesman hadn’t called back. Another message. Again no response. A third message. Finally a call back. It was now eight weeks since the order was placed.

The salesman said the minivan would arrive in three weeks. He vehemently denied everpromising six-week delivery. But he assured the couple they would be seeing their new vehicle in just three weeks. Naturally they weren’t happy but what else could they do? They had to wait.

Finally, the minivan arrived as promised. My friend and his wife rushed to the dealership to pick up the vehicle. The salesman went over the usual details, the invoice, license plates, the van’ s features, etc. And then, as the couple sat in their new vehicle waiting to drive off, he mentioned that if they had any complaints he would like to hear them now because he was evaluated based on customer responses to surveys conducted shortly after the vehicle was delivered. To ensure strong marks for himself, he wanted any complaints or criticisms to be given to him personally.

Needless to say, my friend and his wife did not react positively to this confrontational approach (one which I have found is very common in automobile dealerships). The whole process had been unpleasant, what with the delivery delays, the unreturned phone calls and the salesman’s condescending attitude towards my friend’s wife. They just wanted to get the keys and leave. Which they did, reassuring the salesman that everything was fine.

A week later my friend received a call on behalf of the dealership from a representative of a company hired to survey new vehicle purchasers. He agreed to participate. For most of the questions, he was able to provide high ratings for the vehicle and/or the dealership. But when the interviewer began to ask questions about the salesman, my friend expressed his frustration over the salesman’s handling of the delivery delay. At the completion of the interview he felt better, believing he had done his part to notify the dealership that one of its salespeople was not sensitive to certain customer issues.

Late the next morning my friend received a call from the salesman, who was irate. He had just returned from his sales manager’s office where he had been handed a copy of my friend’s responses to the telephone interview. The salesman could not understand why a customer would give an interviewer such negative information. He was angry and intimidating and would not let my friend off the phone for several minutes.

When my friend finally hung up, he too was angry. He thought his responses to the survey were confidential and would be used for statistical purposes only. He was obviously wrong. When he called the dealership’s sales manager to complain about how the information was used the sales manager defended the practice and refused to apologize.

Not surprisingly, my friend has vowed never to purchase another vehicle at that dealership. He also says he will never again participate in an automobile-related customer satisfaction study, no matter how legitimate. I’m sure his experience isn’t an isolated one, which is unfortunate, because the research industry desperately needs respondents.

But if companies continue to conduct "research" of the type my friend experienced, invalid surveys that damage the already tenuous relationship between interviewer and respondent by violating the rules of confidentiality in the name of employee evaluation, they will poison the pool of willing research respondents - perhaps permanently.