Please take out survey on our service....

The BBQ Pit
1

Dear modern life -

Can I please please PLEASE make a simple purchase without being asked to take an online survey about your service? Everywhere I turn it’s not enough that I’m spending my money to eat in your restaurant, or shop in your store, or avail myself of your service, without being challenged to report back on your service. I know, I know, my opinion is very important to you! Every register receipt I get now-a-days has 6 inches of text telling me to go online and give my opinion on your burrito or coffee and how friendly and gracious your minimum-wage-slave was. (I can win $1,000!)

What’s worst is the auto dealer, I took my car in for scheduled maintenance - fine, they fixed it, I paid them. So far I have gotten a letter, an email, and a voicemail, letting me know I would be getting a customer satisfaction survey (I have yet to get the actual survey…), and to please give them a positive rating as it is vitally important to them.

Honestly, I have to strongly resist the tempation to take the piss out of them in my review “The Service Rep smelled like corn, the Cashier had one boob bigger than the other (I’ll call her Lefty), and the lobby TV was tuned to FOX - I’LL NEVER SET FOOT IN YOUR ESTABLISHMENT AGAIN AS LONG AS I LIVE!” But if I did that they would only call me to follow-up and find out why I said what I did…

Really, can everyone just stop this shit? If I had a complaint I would let you know, otherwise give it a rest! These bullshit attempts to get me to pat you on the back for doing your job is frankly repugnent,

2

This is definitely one of those things I understand and appreciate in theory (you want to make your business better, I dig it!), but in practice. . . you’re right: it’s fucking CONSTANT. Lately, I’ve noticed this much more frequently than before, too.

3

Its the Ikea theory of management. They get you to do their work for them in exchange for a slim chance at a free oil change or something like that.

4

I work in a call center and they’ve given us a script to advise customers that “at a later date, our company may send you a survey to obtain feedback on our service, and we would appreciate that feedback!”

I’ve never said it. Not fucking once. I don’t care what happens to me, I am not saying it. If they get an email with a survey, they may take it. They may not. Wasting words to warn them that they might get it in the future is a waste of oxygen, their time, and my time, and I’m not fucking doing it. Fuck upper management in their fucking arses.

5

If businesses were willing to pay a small fee for my feedback, I’d be happy to give it to them. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out a way to make that work.

6

It’s more than that to me - it’s the “emotional blackmail” aspect of pleading for a positive response.

At the bottom line, some joker in an office somewhere is browbeating their subordinates because they didn’t hit their “positive feedback” numbers. 'Cause when they don’t hit the numbers, the joker doesn’t get a big bonus. Whereas the numbers don’t really reflect good service - they only reflect the number of saps who get roped into responding.

7

It is becoming not unusual on the web, too. What is really annoying is when I go to a site to get information and as soon as the page comes up a pop up appears asking me to complete a survey about their website and if it gave me everything I needed. Given that I haven’t actually seen the website, nor gotten any useful information at all, I wonder what they expect other than a resounding ‘NO’?

8

I do the surveys whenever I buy stuff at Dick’s because I know that it helps the salespeople there.

9

Well, I can speak for the auto industry. The manufacturer breaks our balls about those fuckin’ surveys. That’s why we use every means possible to contact you — they penalize us in every way they can so they can look good in road and track which I’m sure could understand generates more sales.

I don’t like it either. It fuckin’ sucks.:frowning:

10

Yup. And if I have a choice of different sites to look at those products on, then I will close the one that’s popping up a window that conceals the site I’m trying to look at (the kind of pop-up that pop-up blockers don’t stop) and go elsewhere - at best, I’ll buy that company’s product via an affiliate that charges them a fee. This happened frequently recently when I was looking for flights and hotels.

Customer surveys that drive away customers seem a little counterproductive.

11

While this is a good idea in theory, in practice I almost never fill out a survey unless I’m pissed off about something. The thing is, every single one of the surveys I’ve looked at wants my email address, my landline, my cell number, my Twitter account, my Facebook page, and they want me to follow the company. I haven’t looked at my Facebook page in something like three months, I think, I don’t tweet, and I certainly don’t want to hand out my email and phone information. I DO NOT want to become that close to the company. I want to get my goods and/or services, and I will pay the company for those goods and services. I don’t want to become bestest buddies with the company. For that matter, I don’t want to become bestest buddies with my food server, and I will forget that my server’s name is Albert or Maria approximately 5 seconds after s/he’s told me his/her name.

I feel a little bad that the lowest level of workers are probably getting the most pressure put on them to reach a participation goal. But I don’t feel bad enough to surrender my personal contact information in order to participate in the survey…and I suspect that the primary purpose of the surveys is NOT to improve the product or service, but to build contact lists.

12

Yeah, and I get my balls broken every time I go in for an oil change. “You WILL answer, and you WILL answer 5!”

You know how to tell if I’m not happy with my service? When I switch to a different dealership for my service. Everything’s computerized these days. Hyundai can tell I’m going to the Dean Team, instead of Mungenast where I bought the car and went for the first couple of times. That should be a hint.

13

i will fill out surveys especially at stores with good selection, good prices, good customer service or assistance. i let them know they are doing a good job, i am a repeat customer and they are much better than their competitors.

14

As long as it doesn’t happen here. I don’t think Cecil would have the time to read through each and everyone of our surveys.

15

Yeah, I agree. If you want my opinion, pay me for my time. Otherwise, I’ll do what I’ve always done: Exemplary service or extremely poor service will be immediately brought to the manager’s attention, free of charge. Middle-of-the road service will be treated without comment.

I used to belong to a site called e-rewards that would give you points for filling out surveys, which you could then redeem for things like hotel points or airline miles. Happy to do so to pad my travel accounts. Then they changed their redemptions so that you could only redeem one airline award per year, etc.

But they lost me altogether when they started playing fast and loose with their weeder questions. They used to always start each survey with one or two “weeder” questions, which discerned immediately who was eligible to take the survey and who was not. For instance, if you worked for a restaurant, you were weeded out from taking restaurant surveys, and awarded 1 point. If you were eligible, and completed the survey, you’d get full credit – 25 to 75 points generally, depending on the amount of time they took.

Then, as time went by, they started placing placing bogus weeder questions farther and farther into the survey. After you divulged your occupation, sex, age, marital status, # of kids, income, education level, what kind of banking accounts you had, # of stock trades you do per month, number of times you talk to your financial advisor per month…they’d tell you, “I’m sorry, but you don’t qualify for this survey.”

After a few of these, where it was obvious that the companies were gathering data without reimbursing me for my time, I quit doing them.

16

:smiley:

17

Yep, me too. Now, I don’t travel often, but I’d like to get a discount on the obscene ticket prices when I do…I have a choice of ONE airline if I want to go visit my family. ONE. But when it became apparent that the site was just interested in building up its customer list for sale, I quit responding to it.

18

To be fair, some surveys actually do give you an immediate reward in the form of a code to write on the receipt for a discount or freebie on your next purchase. (I think Burger King was the last one I experienced.) I do these through the on-line version and plug in my throwaway email address.

19

I rarely fill out surveys, but I do give feedback on good service.

I’ve lost a lot of weight, and had to buy new bras. I go to a certain department store because they have well trained staff that knows just how to fit a woman, and aid you in selecting comfortable support wear.

This latest time the sales lady was particularly helpful, so I called to talk to the manager and compliment the person who served me. I’d made sure to get her name. The manager said the only calls they usually get are complaints.

20

Toyota wanted to know how my car buying experience was last year. I told them the salesman was great, the car is great, the price was fine, but the absolute asshole in the office who tried to upsell me all kinds of useless and overpriced junk and was a prick about it to boot, ruined the car buying “experience” for me. I suggested they stop trying to hire stereotypes and stop the high pressure tactics. If they can’t make a decent living* selling cars*, then get out of the business.

So, I ran into my nice salesman when I brought my car in for an oil change. He mentioned that he was sorry about the whole thing and admitted the guy I complained about was a dick. I reassured him that he got high ratings from me. He told me that unfortunately, unless the whole dealership gets good marks on these surveys, everyone get’s knocked down. He got lower commissions for three months because of my rants.