What the heck is with all the surveys ?

[athena53]

Definitely a pet peeve of mine, and I've designed a few myself.

I saw one where any rating below "Very good" REQUIRED comments in a text box. That would, of course, discourage most people from clicking on lower ratings and bias the results. I once filled out a survey form a waiter included with my restaurant check. It was a buffet at a hotel in India and the food was heavenly but I thought it was overpriced for the location. On the way out the manager stopped me and argued the latter point. He said it would cost that much in London or New York. Yeah, but this is Delhi. Never again.

Now, I don't bother with surveys unless there's a legitimate incentive. You send me a survey after I stay at your hotel, tell me what's in it for me. Gimme 500 points in your loyalty program or I won't bother. I am, however, happy to post reviews on TripAdvisor. I guess it's because I'm not locked into clicking pages of boxes and can use my own words and pictures, and because I've found their reviews a wonderful resource in planning my own travels.

I used to do surveys for a group that offered funny money to be redeemed for airline and hotel miles (wasn't e-Miles, it was a competitor but the name escapes me). Naturally, many started out with screening questions and you got kicked out with only a token reward if you didn't qualify. Sometimes it made sense. If I'm not planning to buy a new car in the next 12 months, then that's a valid reason you don't want my response in a survey of car buyers. More and more, though, it would go beyond basic criteria, ask 10 minutes of questions that provided some useful information, THEN kick you out with 50 cents. I quit taking those surveys.

[eytonxav]

Better to be an old cantankerous fart or fartina, than an old wet fart or fartina

[MichaelB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R I just wonder who if anybody actually ANALYZES the data collected in these surveys, and how, and what conclusions they draw and with what degree of statistical confidence, and, and, and.... Oh well, they probably just get stuffed into somebody's bottom file drawer to look at later. Then, when that person retires, somebody will put them in the shredder, not knowing what else to do with them, and with the fervent hope that nobody notices.

Back in the day one of my jobs was managing satisfaction surveys. My employer took them seriously, spent big $$ managing the process, and results affected pay and promotions. A few others here have similar experiences as I recall from a past discussion of Baldrige assessment.

One sure sign of a well designed feedback process: the people (or businesses) being surveyed see a purpose in it, so they too take it seriously.

I usually respond to the surveys. With the first couple of questions it's easy to tell if it leads to something or is just a checkmark in some corporate to-do list. Safe to say that the companies that need them the most are the ones that spend the least effort...

[David1961]

Whenever I take the time to complete a survey, if they have a box for "What can we do to improve?", I will write "Stop taking these stupid surveys". Never works, though.

[kcowan]

Does anybody use Trip Advisor to express yourselves? We do.

[Pleeplus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Has anyone been surveyed on their favorite style or type of survey? Just wondering....

My employer just conducted a survey of our customers/members to find out how they would like to receive surveys (e.g. mail, email, phone). Unfortunately the only medium they used to complete the survey was snail mail. When the results of the survey came in they were shocked to find out that the majority of the customers that responded prefer to get surveyed via snail mail. Hello!

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcowan Does anybody use Trip Advisor to express yourselves? We do.

Sure- as I mentioned earlier, I use it a lot. (My reviews are under the same name- Athena53- in case anyone wants to check them out.) To me, the big difference is that my review doesn't just disappear down a black hole, to be used (or not) as some PR person decides. It gets read. I can also be very specific. I've photographed dust-clogged vents, carpet stains, tiny pools, etc. and I can be very detailed so that if I hated the gym or room service but you have no plan to use them, you can move on to the next review.

One other thought on surveys: I read an article that pointed out that most businesses lump the "Excellent" plus "Very Good" results together ("40% of our customers rated us Excellent or Very Good"). There were reasons the "Very Good" ratings were not "Excellent" and celebrating the combined result doesn't address those reasons.

[ziggy29]

My last Megacorp job included responsibility for managing our customer support satisfaction survey and associated reporting. At first, like 10 years ago, we had relatively high response rates, something like 30%. But as every business under the sun started rolling out their own surveys as well, we saw response rates drop to about half of what they used to be, and I think "survey fatigue" is the cause.

Quote:

Originally Posted by athena53 One other thought on surveys: I read an article that pointed out that most businesses lump the "Excellent" plus "Very Good" results together ("40% of our customers rated us Excellent or Very Good"). There were reasons the "Very Good" ratings were not "Excellent" and celebrating the combined result doesn't address those reasons.

Ours were on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being terrible and 10 being outstanding. Our core performance metric was simply the percentage of responses that rated 8, 9 or 10.

[Mulligan]

Many a time I have in good faith attempted to assist in a survey only to become demoralized and down right bored by the endless stream of questions page after page. If the survey won't fit on one page, I will not fill it out.


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[athena53]

Years ago, one of the market survey firms started sending snail mail surveys to my address after I'd moved from NJ to KS, but they were addressed to my Ex's first name and a misspelled version of my last name. (I kept my own name after marriage.) Just for fun, I started filling them out, so they sent them on a regular basis. Some even enclosed a dollar bill, which I'd put in the church collection. Finally, when my Ex died in 2010 I decided to tell them he was deceased and they stopped.

It doesn't give me a lot of faith in surveys, although I tried to fill them out the way he would have.

[Lakewood90712]

IMHO , just another symptom of the decline of real business management in the west. The schools churn out young folks with MBA's , an not an once of real world experience . Much of leadership is a combination of 'The Right Stuff" , can't be learned in school , and using endless survey data to steer things is a very poor way to run things. That being said, I'm sure it's s.o.p. at most medium and large companies.

[scrabbler1]

Last year, BofA changed the way they produced their monthly checking account statements, and in a way I thought was just plain terrible compared to what they had before. Besides answering any surveys on this topic and joining their online panel discussion group (which has been pretty worthless), I also had the chance to speak to a supervisor on their customer service line about not only my recent complaints about their new statement but some of my old ones which never got addressed.

To his credit, he was helpful with one of my older complaints but he did say something I found pretty odd, if not downright dumb. He told me they changed the format because of some complaints they ahd received over the years. I responded that the many of us who liked the existing format which had been around for many years would have had no way of knowing the current statement's format was in jeopardy - people like ME were never asked or (gasp!) surveyed about our satisfaction with the current format. Had I known it was in jeopardy I would have spoken up and tried to defend the current format and attacked the proposed one which eventually became the current one. So now I am stuck with this lousy and confusing format of the checking account statement compared to the nice, simple one they had for many years until last year. Where's a survey when you need one??

[splitwdw]

I assumed that the online surveys are just a way to get your email address. I ignore surveys. If I have complaint or compliment regarding service or product I write to the company.

[frayne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakewood90712 IMHO , just another symptom of the decline of real business management in the west. The schools churn out young folks with MBA's , an not an once of real world experience . Much of leadership is a combination of 'The Right Stuff" , can't be learned in school , and using endless survey data to steer things is a very poor way to run things. That being said, I'm sure it's s.o.p. at most medium and large companies.

Nail, head !