Are customer surveys making for a bad experience?

Many companies are now focused on end to end experience design and measurement and set their KPIs accordingly. But are some in danger of seeing their ‘sophisticated’ measurements backfire?

Some companies these days present you with a survey at every touch point asking you to rate each interaction – however small. When it’s only one or two companies doing it, customers may put up with it.  Get everyone doing it and customers will feel like they spend more time answering surveys than getting what they want.

For the companies, these surveys have two inherent dangers.

1. Data collection is often skewed

A friend was trying to deal with a telco. Every time he called, he was promised resolution and it all seemed fine. Duly he was asked to stay on the line to answer a short survey. Of course, most call centre staff do not miss the chance to ask for a good score as ‘the survey rates their personal performance’.  And because the survey only refers to the specific touch point and operator, one feels obliged to give a good score. He even gave it happily – the interaction was pleasant and he thought his issue was resolved. But later, when they had screwed up again, and he sat there fuming, there was no survey, no opportunity to let them know. The good scores he gave previously had no connection with the reality of his experience. 

Another one. My wife wasn’t happy with our bank (ever since Ogilvy we’ve know this to be important!). So after 20 years it was time to break up. After just 2 weeks and without them having been able to achieve anything, my wife is told she will receive a call for a survey. She also receives an request from the manager to please give a 9 or 10 as anything below is considered unsatisfactory!

The reliance on KPI control and leads to people at every level finding ways to skew their numbers – leaving the entire system ad absurdum. 

2. Survey creates a bad experience

All these surveys are taken in the name of a great customer experience. But the surveys now become so intrusive, that their very existence has to be considered as part of the experience design.

Coming back to the telco and my friend. As a result of ‘having been tricked into giving good scores and not being able to report bad ones’ his experience perception is now worse than if the company had just screwed it up.

We tried it ourselves across a number of touch points. Then did a few interviews to see what people thought. Initially the request for feedback is considered a nice touch and suggests the company cares. But after a short time a feeling of annoyance sets in - ‘they only ask when it suits their purpose’. Those that had dealt with more than one or two of those survey heavy companies, start to think of them more negatively. It feels to them as if:

        - the onus of providing a good experience is put on the customer

        - the company has to ask constantly because they do not know how they are doing

Transfer this into personal life. Imagine you have an employee that asks you with every task for your appraisal. You’d just go nuts. If it is a supplier, you’d go nuts even faster.  It shows their insecurity, lack of internalised standards and inability to self-assess.

In designing customer experiences we will never be able to do without some form of measurement and setting customer focused KPIs.  But surveying and measurement has to be understood as an inherent part of the customer experience, not a tool for managers to chase their bonuses.