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Show me,.... USELESS! ::ding!::
Aug. 13th, 2014 01:13 pmI forgot to put a couple of mailpieces in the meter-and-mail box at the office yesterday, so I took them to the post office. I needed two stamps. I came out close to three minutes later after receiving an interrogation about whether my letter-size envelopes contained any dangerous materials (clearly they haven't been reading my prose:P), a receipt with more text on it than the letters themselves, and a circling of the bottom of that receipt telling me, as the clerk spent time telling me, to fill out an online survey to share my "Postal Service Experience."
For two stamps.
The Surveying of America is reaching extremes of ridiculousness. My bank, which is constantly nagging me to "go paperless" to "save the environment," routinely doubles the amount of paper run through their printers, and the time it takes their tellers to hand them over, by including a "WIN CASH" survey form on the bottom of every single deposit receipt I get back from them. Every office, home furnishing, and non-food retailer now presents you with a receipt containing well over a foot of text beyond the actual purchase- for "You May Also Like" suggestions, for limitations on your returns and exchanges, and always- always- for surveys.
It just gets silly after awhile. I'm sure they're all doing it because business gurus have told the CEOs that "customer feedback is important!" and because they know that the overwhelming majority of customers won't respond; only the happiest and most-pissed customers will even bother, and the laws of averages suggest you'll attract more of the former than the latter.
At some levels, there are serious attempts to game the system. Almost every new car dealer we've dealt with in recent years (okay- one- but the same thing has happened on used cars, too) has called us after sales or service appointments to beg, plead, grovel to be sure that we give them nothing but the highest marks in the surveys that Corporate sends out. If we generally like the level of service, we'll usually give in, but it just seems to result in all kinds of false positives that they wind up crowing about in advertisements about their supery-duper "J.D. Power ratings."
Ah, yes, J.D. Eleanor gets lots of very extensive surveys from them about Iggy, because she is one of only a few thousand drivers of first-generation electric Smart cars in the whole country. And yet, what do they ask her about? Not the driving experience or his impeccable service record, but they keep going on about the sales process, which was, now, over a year ago. So they're getting data that, even if not false, is subject to fadings of memories.
Know who doesn't annoy the shit out of me with surveys? Wegmans. They know that "incredible customer service" is the kind that people will tell them- and the customers' own friends- entirely on their own, without being nagged into confessing it. They also save an incredible amount of employee time and company resources by not wasting tons on the wasted efforts.
If you agree with me, please rate this entry from 1 to 5 in your comments. Even better? Don't.
For two stamps.
The Surveying of America is reaching extremes of ridiculousness. My bank, which is constantly nagging me to "go paperless" to "save the environment," routinely doubles the amount of paper run through their printers, and the time it takes their tellers to hand them over, by including a "WIN CASH" survey form on the bottom of every single deposit receipt I get back from them. Every office, home furnishing, and non-food retailer now presents you with a receipt containing well over a foot of text beyond the actual purchase- for "You May Also Like" suggestions, for limitations on your returns and exchanges, and always- always- for surveys.
It just gets silly after awhile. I'm sure they're all doing it because business gurus have told the CEOs that "customer feedback is important!" and because they know that the overwhelming majority of customers won't respond; only the happiest and most-pissed customers will even bother, and the laws of averages suggest you'll attract more of the former than the latter.
At some levels, there are serious attempts to game the system. Almost every new car dealer we've dealt with in recent years (okay- one- but the same thing has happened on used cars, too) has called us after sales or service appointments to beg, plead, grovel to be sure that we give them nothing but the highest marks in the surveys that Corporate sends out. If we generally like the level of service, we'll usually give in, but it just seems to result in all kinds of false positives that they wind up crowing about in advertisements about their supery-duper "J.D. Power ratings."
Ah, yes, J.D. Eleanor gets lots of very extensive surveys from them about Iggy, because she is one of only a few thousand drivers of first-generation electric Smart cars in the whole country. And yet, what do they ask her about? Not the driving experience or his impeccable service record, but they keep going on about the sales process, which was, now, over a year ago. So they're getting data that, even if not false, is subject to fadings of memories.
Know who doesn't annoy the shit out of me with surveys? Wegmans. They know that "incredible customer service" is the kind that people will tell them- and the customers' own friends- entirely on their own, without being nagged into confessing it. They also save an incredible amount of employee time and company resources by not wasting tons on the wasted efforts.
If you agree with me, please rate this entry from 1 to 5 in your comments. Even better? Don't.