It can’t be that the rep that is handling the call knows what the customer’s choice is regarding the survey. There has to be a way that the system blocks that info, at least til the end of the call. Otherwise, the data the company is getting would be totally skewed.
of course not. But maybe the rep might be more helpful if they knew that caller was completing the survey right after their call.
You’re missing my point; I doubt that the rep who is helping you knows how you answered the question. In my experience there’s an automated question as to whether you’d be willing to participate in the survey, and then you get the rep who helps you. I don’t think the rep who helps you knows how you answer the question. It is in the company’s interest for the rep not to know and the technology is not that difficult to accomplish that goal.
Of course, if the rep herself asks you the survey question at the beginning of the call, then you know she knows. But that is not my experience as to how it works.
I don’t have Comcast, though (thank God!) so your strategy may work for them.
I’m getting tons of political survey phone calls these days. Unfortunately, political organizations are not included in the Do Not Call registry and from what I understand, have no obligation to stop calling, even if you request it.
I can see why many people are getting rid of their landlines. Probably half the calls or more are unsolicited.
I don’t feel guilty at all for saying no to surveys.
I sometimes fill out surveys, generally if I had a particularly good or bad experience. if there was nothing remarkable, I generally skip it. The part I don’t like are the questions about whether you would recommend whatever company is doing the survey. For companies like our large grocery chain or a large airline, people don’t look for recommendations from their friends, they have other criteria (price, does the airline fly to where I want to go, etc.). Sometimes, when you can’t move on unless you answer every question, I’ll abandon the survey in middle.
Best feedback is succinct - our recording will cut you off if it goes beyond 30sec. Our surveys get sent out to you after you hang up so our reps don’t have a bias about giving better svc to the customers who already agreed to a survey…but truth be told, service reps have a thankless difficult job dealing with horrible technology, metrics that penalize for a few seconds over a break, taking too much time to finish documentation…how satisfied the customer is with their service is just icing on the cake which is mostly judged on efficiency metrics. There’s so
much turnover too because of the stress of the job.
Oh and that “would you recommend” question is called NPS - net promoter score - which is a standard industry metric and is the #1 thing being chased by companies - but you are right in saying certain products, or even your own personality color whether you would “recommend” the company. I think that metric isn’t all that - but in the business - right now it is the most important measure they care about. And they watch it like a hawk.
@amandakayak is so right about the NPS. I worked for a company that uses these surveys as a major part of evaluating employees. You got judged not only on your scores, but on the number of contacts who completed the surveys. The big questions was :“BASED ON THIS SPECIFIC CONTACT, how likely are you to recommend X company to your friends or family?”
We got to read the surveys, and it was tough when somebody would write glowing things about you in the comments, but give a low score on the big question.
Since working there, I try to complete surveys when I get great or even good service. Unless someone is really rude or unhelpful, I won’t do a negative survey. My experience is that the good surveys helped, but the bad surveys REALLY hurt, based on the scoring system in place at the time.
I occasionally fill out surveys but am more inclined to do so for a small locally owned business that for a national chain.
I do like product reviews (especially on clothing websites) and have posted a few. Just recently I decided against buying an item from J Crew due to multiple negative reviews (all saying similar things). Instead I bought a similar item with multiple good reviews. Saved me from a potential mistake.
Very helpful, HotCanary and amandakayak. I’ve probably said positive things about a CSR and then given something much lower for recommending the company because no one I know would ask for or want a recommendation for whatever it is that’s being reviewed. I’ll know better next time. Hate the idea that I had a negative impact on an employee somewhere, particularly someone who helped me.
Well, I fill them out sometimes. I try to fill them out if they are short and if the customer service rep was helpful – I want it to be acknowledged somehow that the rep gave good service. I rarely give a bad review, but once we (hubby, actually) filled one out, and it was less than satisfactory – had a problem with tire installation, --and we got a call within minutes from the tire store apologizing and offering to make it right. So sometimes local businesses are paying attention. And yes, because of that, we will continue to patronize said tire store. I let the Amazon ones pile up, and then do a whole bunch at a time. If I get what I ordered I give 5 stars.
Don’t know if it is too late to revive this thread, but decided to avoid redundancy and add on another aspect of the situation.
In the last couple of months we have updated a cell phone and purchased a new car. In both cases, the sales person involved have requested that we fill out a survey, while simultaneously noting in one case that a 9 out of 10 on any question is a flunk and in the second case that below a 9 is a flunk. The implication was that either flunk put jobs and/ or promotions/salaries in jeopardy. Do I think a young car salesman who works hard, but has a bit to learn should be fired? No, these skills take time to acquire. Do I think the surveys have become a charade that puts the customer in a role they have not elected? Yes. I am resentful of the pressures on service providers as well as consumers.
I get data driven marketing and the wish to assess employees. But the questions asked rarely allow the concerns I might have to be reported and the nagging accompanying purchases is quite distasteful. In the process of buying the car, we had a call after our first trip to the dealer (which ended with us saying we had several other brands to assess before deciding), a call after the second trip to discuss possibilities, etc. Burdensome for someone who is not on the car company’s payroll. Yes, you can theoretically opt out, but the cell phone company sent three texts about the survey and this car salesman will call forever to ensure that the final survey is completed so he keeps his job. Likely no place to report any of this in the survey either and while neither employee felt comfortable stating the corporate policy, they felt they had to do so, Likely, there would be in trouble if it was known they stated this to a customer. Yuck.
We had the EXACT same experience when we purchased a new car over a decade ago from…
TOYOTA!
The thing I hated most about them was the time it took to take delivery-- over 1.5 hours, which included the multiple times of being coached on how and what to score the sales experience, along with the host of other add-ons. About a year later when purchasing another Toyota from a different dealer I told the fleet manager, who sold me the car, that he had 30 minutes to deliver me my Highlander, after which time I am canceling the deal! He made it, but just barely…
The Lexus service coordinator gives us that same spiel about the customer satisfaction survey - that anything below a 10 in any category is bad news for him…
I used to work for the Census Bureau, where the major metric field representatives are scored on is percentage of surveys completed. Any refusal is a big black mark against you. The constant conflict between the necessity to get the interview and the desire to respect the circumstances and reservations of the citizenry is agonizing. Teams are simply not allowed to accept a refusal. Repeat contacts are absolutely required. Needless to say, the public simply doesn’t understand this, and the FRs pay the price, personally and financially. I would add that the data the bureau collects in these surveys is extremely valuable, and vital to a variety of core government functions. That doesn’t stop some members of the public from treating FRs like random busybodies or telemarketers.
Interestingly, compliance rates have been dropping steadily, year by year. The standards by which FRs are evaluated naturally fail to reflect this.
Please, people, I beg of you: if you are selected for a survey, please have mercy on the FR and just do it. Government decisions are going to be made one way or another. This is your opportunity to help ensure that it is on the basis of actual data, as opposed to prejudice and supposition.
I hate phone surveys and front door soliciting. I have only had census takers come to my house one time my entire life and I DID cooperate. We are living in present times of ever-increasing scams and, admittedly I always have my guard up!
I was surveyed in the last census. They mailed a form because nobody was ever home during the day and I filled it out. I even filled out the one they sent my mother-in-law, who is now in her 90’s.
I don’t do Yelp or any of those other services. I only do the post phone call surveys if the service was either extraordinarily good or extraordinarily bad. I did go on Rate my Professor once and trash a horrible teacher one of my college students had because my child refused to do it.
I no longer do phone surveys because I don’t know if they are legitimate or scams. I used to do them to get my views heard.
I saw a funny thing a few years ago that rated the politeness or rudeness of the states by what sort of words they used while on the phone with customer service, lol. Two states (MD and LA) made the top 5 in ** both ** cursing and saying please and thank you. Maybe they were used in the same sentence???
Not quite a survey response but very close.
Just to be clear, I’m not talking about the decennial census but about the other surveys that the permanent employees of the bureau conduct. The biggest one is the CPS, the Current Population Survey, which has been done on a monthly basis since the 40s. It is done for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and provides much of the data that goes toward the report issued on the first Friday of every month. 