How’d we do? It’s a very simple question. Only three words, really. And we’ve been seeing it more and more, it seems. You just got done buying all of those Christmas presents online and I can almost guarantee each purchase you made came with an email a day or two later with those three words in it somewhere. Click here to let us know how we did! Your feedback is important! We want to know how your purchase went!
Emails. Postcards. Receipts. Phone calls. Text messages. There are almost an endless amount of options to ask for your feedback. My question is… does anyone really care how you did? Lately, I’ve been trying to take longer and longer breaks from social media, so I’ll dip into my email and fill out a few of these surveys. I let Dick’s Sporting Goods know that I had to wait in a very long line, but the cash register girl was very perky. I let McDonald’s know that “Jamie” at the location in Gladstone is awesome, but their fries are way too cold. I let Amazon know that it’s not necessary to put a five inch box into a 27 inch box to ship it.
Thanks for your feedback!
Then… nothing. I’m certain Jamie didn’t get a raise. I’m still getting boxes that are the size of a minivan for my bottle of melatonin, and Dick’s Sporting Goods is where you want to be if you want to wait in a three hour line on a Saturday. Still.
None of these pieces of feedback rose to the level of “complaints.” And it’s certainly not something I’d ever ask to speak to a manager. Frankly, some of that feedback could make your business better. I just have zero confidence that it ever gets read.
My favorite was when I had a dentist appointment scheduled the day before Christmas Eve. I’ve been at war with my dentist’s scheduling computer for a couple of years now. But the office called me and said the dentist was going on vacation a day early and that they needed to cancel my appointment. But nobody told the scheduling computer and it texted me every 15 minutes the day of my canceled appointment including afterwards saying that I’ve missed my appointment. Well, sure enough the next day, that system sent me a text message with those three simple words, “How’d we do?” Oh boy. I was ready for some feedback here. I texted back “your computer sucks.”
“I’m sorry to hear your appointment wasn’t great. On a scale of 1 to 10…”
“1”
“Type STOP to unsubscribe. Thanks for your feedback!”
That’s IT??? I didn’t even get to unload? That’s all the feedback you needed? I felt cheated. I should’ve gotten a free teeth whitening or something. Or an extra toothbrush at least. Nope. I got to send them a “1.”
Something’s fishy with the survey world. All this data and the only thing I see are longer lines, higher prices, and worse customer service. “Oh but the pandemic and the supply chain slowdowns,” they’ll say. Fine. Stop sending me surveys.
The old adage goes “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.” Either hear what I’m saying, or stop asking.
How’d I do?
(Get more rambling from our rambling moron Chris Kamler on Twitter, where he is known as @TheFakeNed)