Mrs Lincoln, other than that how did you like the play?

My flight was delayed for 3 hours, it wasn’t all bad I enjoyed airport sushi and interacted with several American airlines employees. It may not surprise you that the next day I got a survey, they wanted my feedback! They already know my feedback, they already know I missed my connection.

Here is a disturbing new trend, machines in airport bathroom you get to touch AFTER using the bathroom. The airport wants a survey from you on your bathroom experience. Gross and what is the point?

I can’t go to any website without someone wanting me to take a survey. After every call, email, purchase, there’s a survey. We’re all survey fatigued, but that isn’t even the bad part.

Are companies better at meeting customer expectations because of these surveys? Most consumers say No. Most of the feedback companies are requesting is unnecessary, because they already have the bulk of the feedback.

Let’s start with what happens with all the surveys. While millions of good feedback is provided by consumers

What most companies cares about is a number.

An aggregated survey score that can be used for marketing purposes, secondarily for executive incentives, and if your response is extremely negative, you might get some attention.

There’s a “Voice of the Customer” cottage industry led by tech companies — the story goes something like this: if customers give you good scores, good things will happen.

By good things, they mean consumers will likely buy more stuff. This is shaky math.

Human beings don’t work this way. The fact that I had a good rating today at the McDonald’s drive-through doesn’t mean I’m now a McDonald’s fanboy.

When I was a customer service executive, a big part of my bonus was tied to something called a Net promoter Score. It is a survey that asks how likely you are to recommend a product or service. Since my bonus and the bonus of all executives were tied to this number, we had one mission — make sure the number goes up.

Some think this is a good thing for customer service, but they’re wrong. Because when it becomes about a number, there are a thousand ways to get the number to move without making a lasting positive change to customer service…

This is from an excerpt of my latest book: waiting for service: an Insider’s account of why customer service is broken + Tips to avoid bad service.

Amas Tenumah is a long time CCNG member and regular contributor with his content sharing and speaking with fellow members. He refers to himself as a humanist, futurist, and storyteller. “I obsessively focus on sharing the Truth about two topics - Customer Experience & Living Blissfully.”