Experience data puts employees in the driver’s seat

In 2015, Mazda’s president and CEO of North American Operations, Masahiro Moro, identified providing a great customer experience at every level of the organization, as the company’s top priority. After rolling out nation-wide trainings, among other internal and external initiatives to better engage employees and fans of the brand, Mazda worked with Medallia to collect customer feedback and used the information to make improvements to the customer experience, dealership by dealership.

One Midwestern Mazda dealership began reviewing customer feedback on a regular basis. The Customer Relations Manager noticed that customers were giving the dealership low scores for “Good Value for Cost of Service,” and decided there was an opportunity to provide training for the frontline employees on how to educate customers on vehicle maintenance and the value of Genuine Mazda parts. They also began sharing competitors’ pricing to reassure customers they were receiving a fair price. Over the next few months, their “Good Value for Cost of Service” score soared. The dealership’s frontline team continues to review their customer comments every day. Good customer feedback is used for motivation, and when bad reviews do come in, they are used as learning opportunities.

Medallia has also helped Mazda to scale feedback on standard behaviors expected from employees during transactions with customers. For example, Mazda introduced a customer engagement training plan that emphasizes authenticity, empathy, and transparency to a set of pilot dealerships, and after tracking its success with Medallia, Mazda is preparing to provide similar training to all its dealerships.

Since moving its entire company focus to a customer-centric approach, Mazda has seen an uptick of 2.8% in customer retention, and individual dealerships have observed a positive correlation between employee engagement with the Medallia tool and customer satisfaction.

Source: Customer Feedback Puts Employees in the Driver’s Seat, Medallia Leaders Book