“Would you like to complete this quick survey?”

[King Herald]

I seem to get one of these every single time I deal with people over the phone, in a store, on the internet etc.

Last week I filled a rather negative one in after getting faffed around at the bank. Some ‘greeter’ didn’t seem to have any idea what he was doing, and wasted a couple of days of my time making me an appointment that was totally pointless and with the wrong person.

I filled the survey in on line, pointing out his apparent difficulty in coping with my simple request, and next day I got a phone call from the bank asking a hundred details about what had happened.

I do hope I haven’t lost him his job.

[ambuletz]

don't think they'd lose their job over 1 incident but they might ask them to get their side of the story. see if they trained them better/gave them the right information and/or identify if there's something in their service they need to change or update.

as long as what you said was accurate then its ok. many people don't realise how important surveys can be and just put any old st or give amazing or terrible reviews for no reason whatsoever.

nothing worse then someone who gives a negative review, so the manager then has to investigate. especially with telephone calls as they're recorded. only to find out there was no issue at all. waste of time.

[King Herald]

The woman who I ended up meeting with, next day, who actually had no idea what I was there for, and could not answer my simple single question anyway, seemed to understand the problem: “oh, you’ve met ***** already have you?”

I then got the feeling this was not the first time he had disappointed.....

I have to go back to the bank on Friday to sign papers.... maybe sunglasses and a wig?

[C0ffin D0dger]

My survey rules:

1. Is there anything in it for me e.g. discount on next order, entry into prize draw etc?
2. Was the service really bad in which case good forum to complain?
3. By filling this out can I really help improve an important service or at least contribute e.g. NHS surveys?
4. Did somebody go above and beyond / was really helpful?

Otherwise ignore!

[Shakermaker]

I get more annoyed when some companies place huge importance on surveys filled in by customers who probably don't realise how those surveys affect people at the other end, and have a poor way of distributing the survey.

Both of my sisters did a few seasons as holiday reps for big-name package travel firms. Now, sure, as a job, they both really enjoyed it. The pay wasn't all that, but they weren't doing it to get rich, they got to spend the summer in sunny Spain with free food and accommodation and a group of other people the same age all having fun.

But, they did get a bonus if their customers rated them well on their survey. Except these surveys are given to you when you are on the plane on the way home from your holiday - so yes, you would hope you'd had a nice time, but how well do people fill these out? As soon as they run out of salt and vinegar crisps people were putting "BAD" on every box on the survey, and then if the plane was delayed, or the bus was late, or someone at the airport was rude, these comments and ticks affected that small weekly bonus given out. And you would like to think that the company would allow for such things in the grand scheme of matters but again, no. Too many "bad" ticks for any reason affected everyone from the flight crew down to the rep staff - even though the two never meet!

(One of my sisters got a bad review once because apparently, a German family wouldn't move from the beach where the people filling in the survey wanted to play beach cricket... )

[captain_cynic]

King Herald said:

I seem to get one of these every single time I deal with people over the phone, in a store, on the internet etc.

Last week I filled a rather negative one in after getting faffed around at the bank. Some ‘greeter’ didn’t seem to have any idea what he was doing, and wasted a couple of days of my time making me an appointment that was totally pointless and with the wrong person.

I filled the survey in on line, pointing out his apparent difficulty in coping with my simple request, and next day I got a phone call from the bank asking a hundred details about what had happened.

I do hope I haven’t lost him his job.

No-one gets sacked over one bad review, it might hurt him when it comes to a promotion or pay rise however.

Personally I hate the concept. Many customer service and sales people are completely dependent on getting good marks in surveys to meet KPI's or get their commission.

The theory is that this gets better service, but I don't think that works. All it does is waste a lot of time and give a modicum of power to self-entitled people who think that people care about their opinions. The last thing we need is to be giving these little Napoleons the idea that they somehow matter.

Having been over the other side of the fence in a customer facing role, I can say that if you think "the customer is always right", you've never worked in retail. More often than not the customer is a entitled, rude, ignorant, arrogant, whiny bh that cant tell their arse from their elbow and somehow it's all your fault. As such, I go out of my way to be nice to retail staff, though in general I think you cant hate a man for doing an honest days work... except if they're a parking inspector, then you should hate them with every fibre of your being.

[rolex]

Surveys can be counter productive. I filled one in for a Company called 'Trustpilot.' Unfortunately it was a negative review on a product and they failed to print it on their website. Now if I see a business displaying a five star recommendation from Trustpilot i will ignore that Company and go elsewhere.

[Allaloneatron]

Not a survey but I had a visit from someone at GCHQ to interview me about a candidate who worked for me before (jumped before being pushed).He had made it through to a late stage. I told the interviewer what a shower I thought his candidate was and gave him some cracking examples.

One month later I get an email from Salisbury's asking for a reference for the same candidate. I didn't feel bad as I did not want this chap in charge of any aspect of national security.