I like filling out surveys, but there’s one question that keeps coming up that really annoys me:
That question makes a lot of sense from a company that has a lot of competition. But a few minutes ago, I got it from the electric company. I don’t get it. I don’t really have any choice which utility company I use, so why do they ask this?
In recent years, there have been some breakups in the utility industries. For example, I use Company A as my electricity distributor (the company that actually brings the electricity to my home), but I use Company B as my electricity supplier (the company that manufactures the electricity and uses Company A to get it to my home). Please note that in my area, Company B has lots of competitors, but there’s only one Company A. Company A are the guys who maintain the wires in the streets, and they are the only ones in town who do this. They are also the ones whose survey I was responding to. The survey was from my distributor, who I have no choice over, and had nothing to do with my supplier. So why do they ask this?
No an expert but I bet that they just used someone’s standard survey form. Obviously if ‘Company B’ was doing the survey, the question would be relevant.
Thinking further, It does not have to be the case that there is an alternative. The question is really the same as saying “Do you like us?” but in a more easily answered way. If Company A gave you bad service then you would answer ‘No’, even though they have no competition.
I agree that it seems a bit pointless, but one possibility is that by phrasing the question in terms of an action (no matter how hypothetical), you might get a more accurate assessment of the respondent’s experience than ‘how would you rate your experience with us overall’.
From the question I thought this was about recommending the Dope to family and friends. To which I say no way, I don’t want them knowing that I’m not as smart as they think I am, because I get a lot of answers to a broad range of topics here. Comes in handy at the bar when I can say let me think about that one and then post a thread and come back an hour later with a response.
This. Net Promoter is one of those woo woo management trends that a lot of executives now think is spiffier than sliced bread, matrix management, and employee self-evaluations.
One downside to the proxy, though, is that some people may be less likely to be in a position where deciding whether to recommend a product or service to friends and family is relevant. For example, you might be very satisfied with the emergency medevac helicopter that picked you up half-dead off of a remote island in French Polynesia, but you’d rather that your friends and family not have to deal with that. “Yeah, if you end up with dysentery out there on a desert island, StarMed helicopters are just the best!!”.
There’s also the issue with “vice” products. How many people would “recommend” a brand of cigarettes to a family member?
At the moment there is only one internet provider available to my little corner of the island. And I would not recommend them to anyone.
I tell any new residents in the area to stay away from them. Their service is unreliable. They are slow to address problems when reported. They will put you through a nightmare of billing errors. Not having internet is a better choice.
But since I am not a customer of theirs I don’t get any of their satisfaction surveys. Which makes me wonder about the reliability of such surveys. If you only ask the customers who are willing to put up with your BS then you are cherry picking the sample statistically.
There is a competitor building out a fiber network. Hopefully it gets to my home soon.
Every state has an equivalent to New York’s Public Utilities Commission. I’m betting that your state’s equivalent requires this. If the distributor slips below a certain level of satisfaction, they might start allowing others to compete in distribution. And the distributor does a million other things: reads meters, repairs outages, trims trees away from electric lines, digs holes for underground services, all of which are open to enormous dissatisfaction because people want power magically without any disruption.