How not to survey your customers
James Lileks is a favorite writer of mine - he posts a regular column for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and his daily Bleat entry is a regular stop on my reading list. He’s incomparable at accounting daily life events - always interesting, always insightful, always funny.
Today he writes about getting the oil changed in his car. After jumping through all the hoops that getting an oil change now entails - ie, turning down every service imaginable, trying to convince them that you really just want an oil change - he’s asked to call an 800 number, take a survey, and be entered to win $500 in free gas. But here’s what the manager said: “If you could take this survey, it’ll take about five minutes. And if you could give us a 5 on the responses –” he circled the number 5, printed on the back of the entry sheet – “We’d appreciate it.”
Lileks reacted the same way I would: “Nothing makes me want to give them a four more than being told they’d like a five.” We always encourage our members to let their customers know that they’ll be contacted regarding their experience - it’s a simple, effective way to increase response rates. But asking for high scores is a sure way to get low scores!
Here’s a permalink for the article from Bleat:
http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/07/0407/042607.html
This illustrates the advantage to having a third-party conduct your customer satisfaction surveying for you.
Recently a friend was telling me what happened after he purchased a car from a local dealership. The salesperson handed over a similar survey note card and persuaded my friend to give all 5’s because it impacted his bonus. On the guy’s desk was a picture of his wife and kids, so my friend felt more than obligated to respond with 5’s. Clearly the scores of 5’s were not based on 100% performance.