blogcutter

From time to time, I get a phone call asking if I'd be willing to participate in a survey. My answer depends on a number of things - my knowledge of the company doing the survey, my overall interest in the topic they want to survey me about, and my mood and overall level of busy-ness at the time they call.

Yesterday I took a call from Numeris (formerly the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement). They explained that they were a ratings company and were surveying people's radio listening habits. Since I do listen to and enjoy a number of shows on CBC Radio, I said I'd be interested. The surveyor explained that they would be sending me, via snail-mail, a unique user name and password to sign in and complete their online survey, which should take 10 to 15 minutes. So far, so good.

But first I had to answer some questions over the phone. There were the usual questions to ascertain that no one in the family worked for a media outlet such as a radio or TV station or newspaper or magazine, nor for an advertising agency. Fair enough. Then I was asked my name, age, gender and the number of people in the household. Then I was to answer the same questions about the second person in the household. At which point I said: HOLD IT right there. I don't know yet if the other member of my household wants to participate!

The caller still wanted all the details of the second person in the household in order to set up a second unique user name and password and said that if they decided not to do the survey, that would be OK. So I asked, couldn't he just create some sort of unique signon & password for "second person at same address"? After all, he had promised that all the data would be confidential and anonymized and all that good stuff. Nope, no can do.

At that point, I decided that this whole thing was way more trouble than it was worth. I told him that given those restrictions, I was no longer interested in participating. Goodbye.

Apparently Numeris is NOT accredited by the Better Business Bureau. Their BBB rating is 1.32 stars out of a possible 5. I looked at the complaints about them, resolved and otherwise, but they weren't particularly illuminating. Mostly people were complaining just about actually GETTING calls from Numeris at all (or too frequently), and indicating that they would be putting themselves on the Do Not Call list. But I didn't find anything about the specific method or tactics they use in conducting their surveys. Still, for a company that's been in business since 1944, I find that to be a rather startling indictment.

I'm still a bit bummed out that I didn't get a chance to put in a good word for Vinyl Tap (which will broadcast its final episode this summer), Quirks & Quarks, The Next Chapter, Tempo, or any of the other shows I enjoy.

It never seems to stop these days. Make a routine purchase at your local drugstore and the cash register receipt urges you to go online and "Tell us how we did today! You might win $1000 or a free iPad!!" Frankly, if I got through the store within a reasonable period of time, the cashier wasn't out-and-out rude to me and she gave me the right change, I'm satisfied. Not delighted or ecstatic. Satisfied. They've met my expectations and I've really nothing more to say. So why should I go to their website and say more?

Actually, there's one thing that does impress me because it's so rare. That's when the cashier actually counts my change back to me. You know, like they did in the good old pre-calculator days when people still used slide rules for the more advanced calculations and cashiers didn't expect the cash register to do everything for them. But the folks who do that are generally the small independent businesspeople or the farmers at the market stalls (who are also independent businesspeople, I guess): in other words, precisely those folks who would never in a million years hand me a cash register tape urging me to go online and tell them how they did today!!

Other than that, I don't particularly care if the woman in the clothing shop packages my purchase in artfully draped coloured tissue paper in an elegant carrier bag and walks around from behind the counter to hand it to me directly. Certainly she should know her merchandise: What type of fabric is it? Is it washable? What sizes and colours is it available in? I'm even receptive to hearing her views on whether that colour and style suits me or whether something different might suit me better. But other things that they evidently teach in the Sales Associateship 101 course are at best unimportant and at worst downright annoying because there's this tacit implication that we don't see through the little mind games they're playing with their customers.

Whenever I go to a conference, it seems they want us to fill in an evaluation for every single session we go to. Now, I don't mind answering a few questions about the conference as a whole. Was it worthwhile? Would I go back? Were there sessions I particularly enjoyed or which left me cold, and were there sessions I would have liked to see but which weren't offered? How were the accommodations, catering and social events? Was it good value for the money? Those are things they can really use for planning purposes. But I have my doubts whether the individual session evaluations really make all that much difference. and they often make me late for my next session so I can't get a seat!!

There are surveys I do participate in because I think they're worthwhile, the originators are listening to what I have to say, and they have the potential to really make a difference. Case in point: the biweekly CARP polls on issues of the day of particular interest to Canadian seniors. I think CARP does a really good job of lobbying government and they're large and powerful enough that they have the ear of the higher-ups, while still having enough of a grass roots base that they'll take the pulse of individual members - the citizens and voters. They think nationally and act both locally AND nationally (though in many ways the issues transcend national borders).

When I was still in the workplace, I felt that the generations that had grown up very "wired" tended to want continuous feedback about every little thing they did - and they expected 95% of that feedback to be positive! I'm not sure if that means they have a super-positive self-concept or that they're incredibly insecure! That's obviously a sweeping generalization I'm making and I hasten to add that I know not all younger people think alike!

But I see it in other milieux as well, especially the tourism and hospitality industries. I take a trip on Via Rail and they want to know every last detail of how I enjoyed my trip. I stay in a hotel and they want me to evaluate my stay. If I give them 9 out of 10, they want me to tell them what it would have taken for me to give them a 10. I don't want to get anyone into trouble, but it gets a bit tedious after a while. And surely the whole point of surveying your customers should be to learn what your strengths and weaknesses are and what are the concrete measures you could take to perform better?