Can’t get no satisfaction…

‘So how would you rate the service you received on a scale of one to five, five being highly satisfied and one being highly dissatisfied’ said the lady conducting a satisfaction survey on behalf of the company who’d recently replaced my windscreen.

‘Well that depends, the call centre were great when I first called, I mean really helpful. The local branch were OK, but absolutely insisted on doing the replacement on Boxing Day, and then the operative didn’t actually turn up, and no-one called me to re-arrange, but actually the lady at the call centre did a great job of sorting things out, then the local centre called and weren’t sure the guy they were sending out was really qualified to do the job, but then the chap who did turn up was really friendly and did a great job, other than remarking my car was a little dirty, but hey it was sparkling clean on Boxing Day when I got up early – feeling a little under the weather it should be noted – to wash it when I thought someone was going to turn up’ – I said helpfully.

‘So how would you rate the service you received on a scale of one to five, five being highly satisfied and one be highly dissatisfied’ the lady conducting a satisfaction survey on behalf of the company who had recently replaced my windscreen said testily.

‘Mmm, well a three I guess…..but…’

‘Question two’ the lady interrupted with increasing irritation.

And so it went on. Rather inconveniently my experience didn’t fit very well with the satisfaction survey. I suspect the outcome was that the operative who didn’t turn up probably got a bonus, and the call centre team got taken to task. But it raises the question why bother do a survey if you don’t actually want any feedback? It seems the ultimate irony if the customer satisfaction survey itself becomes a source of dissatisfaction. I mean try it for yourself, wander over to the nearest person, ask them an interesting question, and when they start to answer, put your fingers in your ears, and start yelling ‘la, la, la, la, la, I can’t hear you, la, la, la…….’

Anyway, I wasn’t the only one thinking along these lines – very nice post on the topic from Seth Godin.

ShareThis