This week from the Curmudgeon Times.
In the last week I have been asked to rate and comment on a variety of experiences, events, interactions, and transactions. The list includes purchasing a rubber door stop for $6, receiving a parcel in the mail, the quality of packing of said parcel, the courtesy of a receptionist, the speed of response to a question, the ease of use at a website, a taxi ride, punctuality of a bus, the hygiene of a toilet, quality of an online purchase in the parcel above. Most readers have similar experiences on the computers screen, on the pocket phone, and in person.
Those who employed will add to this list the numerous in-house surveys they are obliged to complete on this, that, and everything else. Retired though I am, I see some of these go by on email, and, now I think of it, even as a retiree I have been required to complete one on modern slavery and another subject I can’t recall now. I was required to do them, else risk my access to certain services supplied to we doddering emeriti.
These requests often come with a dozen or more items, with a response required for each, and with an additional open-ended dialogue box that must be completed with a minimum number of characters. These questionnaires are designed to avoid response-set bias and so take some little thought and attention to complete.
Each instance of this request has the ostensible purpose of improving the customer experience while its immediate effect is to degrade one customer’s experience.
Most of the time there is nothing to report. The parcel was delivered, the door stop went home….
At times I feel an obligation to comply, say with local business which I hope will continue or a personal online retailer, e.g., through Etsay. I feel no such obligation to corporate giants but I have found if I do not reply, the request remains like Banquo’s ghost. I cannot delete the request just as McBeth could not delete Banquo.
These requests do provide an opportunity to flag a problem, but my personal experience with that is negative. When i ordered a six-pack, among other things, from an online retailer and found on delivery only four bottles in the pack, whereas, on checking, I had paid for six, I reported this in a feedback request to blind eyes. There was never a response, let alone restitution. It was simply a corporate routine.
In many companies the volume of this feedback must be considerable, and the harvesting must be technical, identifying only the more egregious remarks. The rest of us are chaff.
The solution is to do another survey about surveys! Managers must have something to manage.
Of late, I find that even the most casual purchase is met with a request for my phone number. Why? So I can be sent a Survey Request Form about buying a pack of chewing gum. My response to this request now is ‘No.’
When I search the web I find the management and business industry is formulating tactics to trick customers into replying.