OMG. Is it time to Stop the Survey Madness?

I’m having one of those moments. I’m on line, answering emails and I received a request for feedback on a recent transaction I did with one of the financial institutions I do business with (and that we all revere as one of the best.)

Because the rep was so good, I jumped at the opportunity to give feedback on his performance.  As I was filling out question after question after question and starting to get survey fatigue, my new Windows 10 installation popped up with a “Would you be willing to give us feedback on your new product?” and (I kid you not) I then got yet ANOTHER pop up for a web site I was using. Literally, three survey requests in less than 30 seconds.

Now – I know that this doesn’t happen to everyone, right? Then I started to think about it. Have we over-asked our customers what they want? Have we pushed people to the point where they are in such a heavily survey burdened world that they just don’t care to give feedback anymore?

More and more I’m seeing a few Voice of Customer (VOC) survey trends as we all run towards designing outstanding customer experiences that I think we need to pay attention to. They feel like HUGE red flags to me.

1. Asking everyone for feedback all the time on what seems to be every digital interaction. There is a part of me that wants to respond: you have my click data – figure out where your site failed. It seems like it would be such a better way to figure out how well your site is functioning – especially since it seems that every single site is asking for feedback now. Be different. Don’t ask.
2. We know that your Customer Service Representative isn’t at fault. For real. 99.9% of the time, we know that the issue is beyond their control. Why, in surveys, do you feel the need to again and again differentiate between the “CSR” and the “overall experience”? Yes, your CSR did everything they possibly could. No – I’m not going to every do business with you again because you have a substandard product. Ask me about what matters. Chances are, the issue isn’t about your people.
3. Asking the same question multiple times because you don’t like my answer. I literally was giving 1s on a survey not that long ago. 1s were bad. The auto voice kept reminding me that “1 was low and 10 was high” and would then ask me the same question again. For real. I’m not an idiot. Just let me happily rate you a 1 and don’t try to correct me.

I think that if we just tried to be a little different – perhaps a little more thoughtful in our surveying and survey design, perhaps we could alleviate that survey burden that consumers must be feeling and perhaps then, we’d actually start getting solid VOC feedback again.