Nobody's bonus
depends on
your answer.
Almost every business you deal with already surveys you, and almost every one of those surveys is scored by someone whose pay depends on the answer — which is why the car dealership asks for a perfect 10 before you leave the lot. Caliper asks ten fixed questions in each sector, of customers who can prove they were there, every quarter since Q3 ’24. Nobody being measured can pay us anything, so there is nothing to beg for.
- Quarters published
- 8
- Sectors measured
- 4
- Verified customers
- 161
A number pinned to the ceiling
When a score sets bonus money and only the top box counts, everyone in the building learns to ask for the top box. The result is a decades-long series in which almost every business scores almost perfectly, almost always — and no customer can tell one from another. The instrument is fine. The custody is the problem.
A number that is allowed to move
Ask the same ten questions of verified customers, publish the sample size, and take money from nobody who is being rated. Then a business that stops answering its phone shows up as a business that stopped answering its phone — in the quarter it happened.
What actually moved
Change in the Service Conduct Index between the last two closed quarters. The open quarter is excluded — comparing a half-collected quarter against a finished one is the easiest way to manufacture a trend.
| Store | Metro | Since Q3 ’24 | Index | Quarter change | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Norcross Chevrolet Chevrolet · Norcross | ATL | 60.4 | +3.4 | 121 | |
| Peachtree Kia Kia · Midtown | ATL | 73.8 | +2.6 | 171 | |
| Desert Ridge Honda Honda · Desert Ridge | PHX | 51.4 | −2.5 | 183 | |
| Northgate Nissan Nissan · Northgate | SEA | 47.2 | −2.3 | 158 | |
| Green Lake Veterinary Small animal · Green Lake | SEA | 48.7 | −2.2 | 108 |
One instrument, four sectors
The five dimensions never change — responsiveness, transparency, integrity, competence, respect — because they are what a customer of any service business can judge. Only the ten statements change from sector to sector. Every verified customer rates each from 0 to 10, or answers not enough information — which is itself recorded, because a rising share of people who cannot say what was done to their car is a finding about a service department, not a gap.
Changing a prompt would end its series. So prompts do not change: an item is retired and a new one begins, and the old line stops where it stopped.
Every sector's ten questions →- Car service departments10 items
“When I contacted this service department, I reached a person who could actually help me.”
verified by repair order number
- Landlords and property managers10 items
“When I reported a problem, someone acknowledged it within a reasonable time.”
verified by lease reference
- Home services contractors10 items
“They arrived within the appointment window I was given.”
verified by invoice number
- Veterinary practices10 items
“When my animal needed to be seen urgently, I could get an appointment.”
verified by invoice number
You cannot rate a business you did not use. Every answer is tied to a credential — a repair order, a lease reference, an invoice — matched to a real transaction in the quarter being measured. One visit, one voice, checked in the database rather than in the interface.
A quarter with fewer than 25 verified customers for a business is withheld and marked as withheld. A thin quarter is more dangerous than a missing one — it looks exactly like a real movement, and here that movement is attached to a named business.
Not for placement, not for certification, not for a badge, not to have a quarter reviewed. Nearly every other rating a business carries is available to that business on some commercial basis. That is the whole reason this one exists.