Mister Muffler, headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, is a leader in the automotive aftermarket industry. For over 50 years, Mister Muffler has specialized in the maintenance of mufflers and shock absorbers and over the years, has continued to diversify and grow its services—a brand now known for operating total bumper-to-bumper auto service centers.

Mister Muffler currently serves customers throughout from over 65 service center locations. As a testament to their success, a recent industry poll resulted in a 94% recognition level and a 97% level of customer satisfaction; ranking the company as one of the most recognized and respected aftermarket automotive brands.

For most companies, achieving a 97% level of customer satisfaction would be excellent news. Daniel Malandruccolo, Vice President, interpreted this information differently. “Mister Muffler was built upon a strong belief that customers come first,” says Mr. Malandruccolo, “and when even one of my customers is dissatisfied, I am committed to understanding why, and finding a solution to prevent the occurrence from happening in the future.” “While a 97% satisfaction score is an excellent achievement, I am always interested in learning more about how we can surpass customer expectations, in order to satisfy each and every person that comes into a Mister Muffler location.” Mr. Malandruccolo turned to a baseline survey to learn more about the buying behaviors of his customers.

“While the aggregate nature of the information provided me with excellent insight into the overall customer experience, it didn’t allow me to drill down into the results, to find out which aspects of our service or product offering could be improved, or even which location served them,” says Mr. Malandruccolo. As a result, Mr. Malandruccolo turned to an alternative method of obtaining and accessing continuous customer feedback.

The goal for Mister Muffler was to implement a system that would provide daily customer feedback and real-time, unit-level reporting, and offer benchmarking capabilities that would track and report month by month and comparative analysis of key customer experience indicators.

This information would serve to offer valuable insight regarding the level of customer satisfaction and loyalty while measuring the effectiveness of strategic business initiatives, including marketing campaigns and overall brand perceptions, as well as touchpoint-by-touchpoint evaluations of in-store engagements, even the performance of newly hired employees.

After evaluating different options, Mister Muffler chose to partner with Agili-T, a firm that specializes in retail customer experience measurement programs delivered through a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) based reporting platform.

“We chose Agili-T after seeing a live demonstration of their technology platform,” says Mr. Malandruccolo, “it offered all of the features and real-time reporting capabilities that we needed, and we also appreciated their hands-on, personalized service. Agili-T’s depth of expertise in questionnaire design, combined with their best practice approach for selecting the most appropriate, and effective data collection methods, ensured a seamless implementation. Now that the program is operational, they have definitely surpassed our expectations.”

Mister Muffler’s feedback program allows customers to rate their most recent experience by participating in a short, online survey (www.mistermuffleropinion.com).

The survey provides an in-depth assessment of customer perceptions and feelings regarding each moment of their experience, such as:

• Ease of booking an appointment
• How well the staff understood customer needs
• Staff courtesy and product/technical knowledge
• Quality of services
• Respect for promised turnaround times
• Waiting room ambience and amenities

To drive response rates and to thank customers for their time and input, each survey participant is entered into a drawing for a chance to win a cash prize of $500.

Obtaining customer feedback from the customer’s point of view provides key strategic information for executives, managers and franchise operators. In addition, open-ended comments offer rich insight about the overall customer experience, including feedback regarding areas where Mister Muffler excelled, as well as areas where Mister Muffler could improve. Mister Muffler uses feedback to segment satisfaction by demographic, by type of service rendered and by location, to name a few, and to optimize everything from its share-of-wallet, to its employee training practices, and targeting tactics, at local levels where resource investments will have the most impact.

For customers, this means a chance to comment about their most recent visit, and for Mister Muffler, it provides immediate feedback regarding the level of satisfaction from each customer, on a continuous basis. It also allows Mister Muffler to close the loop and deal with customer issues or complaints quickly.

Mr. Malandruccolo indicates that “...offering an incentive to increase participation rates ensures you have a sample which is statistically significant,” and “getting buy-in from the franchisee committee ensures a higher level of commitment from operators at the franchise level.” “To date, the feedback we have received has allowed us to become a more responsive, customer-driven organization, and have identified key strategic segments within our customer-base that will be used to build targeted employee training programs that correspond to each,” says Mr. Malandruccolo. “Thanks to an alert system which is built into the reporting tool, we are now able to pinpoint where and when customer issues arise, and can react more quickly and decisively.”

According to Mr. Malandruccolo, “By introducing a continuous customer feedback program, our operational investment can be measured not only according to financial outcomes, but also according to objective satisfaction measures offered through real-time customer feedback.”

On the heels of the successful Mister Muffler implementation, Mr. Malandruccolo is currently evaluating the possibility of extending their customer experience measurement program to 3 subsidiary retail divisions, which form part of the MMO Group and Vast-Auto Distribution family of companies in Canada.

Leverage customer feedback to your advantage. It can provide rich insights into not only what your customers’ expectations and value preferences are, but also how well your company is performing relative to each loyalty factor, at each customer touch-point and engagement. Take the opportunity to learn from those continuous measures and insights, using them to create more unique, productive and memorable customer experiences.

Don't make assumptions. Instead of guessing, use a formal customer feedback program to identify precisely what works and what doesn't. As one example: Prior to implementing its customer feedback program, Mister Muffler had assumed that it was easier to please its male customers. After conducting the feedback survey however, it became immediately clear that the male customer is harder to please (needs more service and information) than the female customer as previously assumed.

Are you optimizing your customer feedback program in a way that can enhance the customer experience and improve operational performance? Contact us for an evaluation of your current system.