BofA is nagging me to take their fucking survey. If I wanted to give them feedback I would have done it the first time they asked. To make it worse, when I replied to tell them to fuck off the email bounced. I guess they really don’t want my opinion after all.
I don’t “do” surveys either. I think they are bullshit.
Hey now! This is what I do…analyse these kinds of surveys.
Not saying you should take them but company’s actually do get benefits from these things.
Sigh, people complain that companies are large monolithic, unfeeling entities but then bitch when they ask for advice/help 
I’d like to believe that companies actually pay attention to customer surveys. I’d also like to believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
However, the only change I’ve ever noticed when I take surveys is an increase in spam or telemarketing or junk mail. The products don’t seem to change. As far as I can tell, surveys exist to get contact information from consumers, I’ve never seen any signs that companies pay attention to survey results.
Then they should pay me to take them.
FWIW, my company takes its surveys very seriously. We build financial software for a wide variety of industries and I do tech support. My quarterly bonus is directly tied to the scores I receive, and my bosses keep a very close eye on them to make sure we do a good job. We also don’t sell contact information to spammers and telemarketers. Granted, we aren’t a huge company (yet), but, to borrow a phrase I read elsewhere on the SDMB, I’ll swallow the Space Needle large end first if we ever start doing that sort of thing.
You know, this has come up many times. Several clients (companies) actually do wish to pay you but that has been tried in the past.
The current trend in the industry is ‘quality of respondents’…and not just lip-service either…though there are still some doing that. The trend these days is to try to verify the people participating the survey to make sure they are “Real, Unique and Engaged”.
The problem with paying people to take surveys is that people want to get paid…and so will try to get into the survey even if they shouldn’t be just because they will get paid. I’ve seen the results of this and it aint pretty. Pay someone $10 to take a luxury car survey and you can have your data ruined because of large amounts of people getting in by saying “SURRRREEE I will be buying a luxury car in the next year!” when all they want is the $10. They will also bring in 50 alts of theirs as well. Several years ago, there were entire websites dedicated to getting people into paid online interviews…where to find them and how to lie to get into it.
This has brought a real screeching halt to any sort of getting something for your participation over the last several years.
We do actually pay some people but these are usually specialists or specialized customers. For example, interviewing doctors about drugs, for example can get paid $300…but they probably sneeze at that amount and do it because they want to and not the cash. If they didn’t, the same problem could happen.
Fortunately, the stuff I work on tends to have customers that seem to want to take the surveys for free so, unlike some of my colleagues, I dont have a real issue with this.
Memo to anybody wanting to survey me: It has been done to death, and there are way too many of them. I’m not going to fill out a survey every time I buy a tube of toothpaste, make a hotel reservation, call a help desk, have lunch at Burger King, or scratch my itchy crotch. I swear, I expect to be handed a form asking me to rate my satisfaction with the janitorial staff when I walk out of the men’s room after taking a dump.
Now, for the rest of you, please rate your satisfaction with this post:
-
Did it meet your informational needs?
-
Was it (a) witty and perceptive; (b) trite and illiterate; or © totally sucky?
-
Would you recommend posts by Freddy the Pig for your friends and colleagues who need the Straight Dope?
Thank you for your time.
The last several times I’ve bought a car, the salesman has gone out of his way to say something like, “You’ll be receiving a survey from the company about the service you received when you bought your car. Now, if you answer any of the questions with less than 10 out of 10, I’ll get in big trouble and lose my bonus, and maybe they’ll fire me and my kids will starve to death.”
Maybe a slight exaggeration on my part, but the implication was there. I never answer the surveys, either, but it seems to me that the results are going to be extremely skewed if they allow this kind of tactics on the part of the person being rated.
The only thing answering surveys gets you is a place on the “hey! this guy likes to take surveys!” list.
Similar to the “hey! this guy likes to donate to charities from telemarketers!” list a one time over-the-phone donation will get you.
It’s not just for buying the car, they also do it in the service department. And your analogy is not far off. I usually get “If you can’t give me 10 out of 10, please come talk to me first.” or some such.
ETA: In reply to FatBaldGuy.
Your time is valuable…
$200/hr., in 15 minute increments…minimum, and money up-front.
At least that’s what I charge.
No takers yet…but I’m not crying about it…got better things to do.
I can tell that I get on the marketing lists when I take surveys because I give a false initial, or a variant spelling of my name on most surveys. And while I believe that the people (waiters or sales people or whoever) really don’t intend to put me on a list, I also believe that the companies WILL collect this contact data without informing the front line CSRs. Back when I worked in a clothing store, the owner attended a seminar on Improving Your Sales. One of the speakers bright ideas was to take down the names, addresses, and phone numbers from all the checks, and build up a store calling list. Yeah, this was legal. However, the manager and I managed to convince the owner that yes, most people DO object to telemarketing. See, the owner almost never answered her own phone, because she used a business phone number on her checks. She honestly thought that our customers would be delighted to get a phone call from us when we were going to have a sale. Some people are just that out of touch. I don’t understand why I should follow a business on Twitter, for instance…I’m just not that interested in what a business is doing.
I’d be delighted to take surveys if I didn’t get spam/telemarketing/junk mail from taking them, and if I saw a real change in the products or services offered. For instance, I’ve been taking a couple of Rate the Music surveys for some time now, though, and I’ve never noticed a real difference in the music mix.
In my experience, most surveys are only marketing devices, the companies don’t seem to be interested in my opinion, only my contact info. I wish it were different.
So, this is what I have to look forward when I accidentally click that “Go paperless” link they throw at me every time I log in?
Thanks. 
I’m conducting phone surveys right now. Muahahahaha!
I do them on behalf of other companies, though (mainly universities and colleges), so I can’t say for certain what they do with the information. They’d better use it for good, considering how much work I do crunching the numbers.
Also, we’re 99% business to business (not tonight, though), and if you’re not interested, we can’t be arsed to keep chasing you for an opinion.
I’m sure you knew this, but I must nitpick.
You get to the survey by clicking a link. When you reply to the e-mail, you’re sending it to a false address. Those are not the same thing.
I made something like that for my job. Yes, we want patients’ information, but no, we do not want it in e-mails.
Wayyyyyy back in college I did a stint as a phone interviewer.
My 2 favorite completes…
-
Biz to Biz…with the vague instructions to get as high in the company as possible. I finally reached someone in the company after being transfered again and again…and the voice sounded…familiar. We went through the survey and he was very nice and DAMN he sounded familiar. We got to the end and I asked him his name and he said Lee Iaococca (sp?). I was sure I was being made the brunt of a joke after I hung up…but the voice was familiar from TV and his answers were well thought out…so maybe
-
Biz to Biz again. I got ahold of the target and when I identified what I wanted he said “ARRRRG! I hate surveys and I hate the product you are talking about. To be Frank, I am an asshole/very mean person”. I responded that if assholes didn’t take the survey then the company would only hear from nice people and not hear bad things about them. I said it better at the time but I do remember saying ‘assholes’ because my supervisor cocked up an eye at me then started listening in. There was silence for about 20-30 sec…but I could hear sound…and then he said…go ahead and ask and he went through to the end. I couldn’t believe it.