Customer satisfaction surveys: Companies giving the illusion they care

Used to be that, when you bought something, the person you bought it from said "thanks" and that was that.

Not any more. Now that virtually every business in America is part of a chain, you get a follow-up survey asking you to rate your "experience." The folks who run these big companies seem to think that, by giving the illusion they actually care about your satisfaction, you will have warm fuzzy feelings and will want to return.

Take your car into the dealer for service and, a few days later, you get a call from someone asking questions about it. "Was the waiting area clean?" (No, it was covered with vomit.) "Were you greeted properly?" (The receptionist was lighting a fart when I walked in but she did manage to say "Hello, Mr. Dryden.") "Was the work done to your satisfaction?" (I came in for an oil change and they painted my car purple.)

Stay in a Sheraton, fly JetBlue, rent a car from Avis or make a deposit at Webster Bank and you get an email survey.

Call Comcast and before you are placed on hold for 47 minutes, you are asked if you are willing to take a brief survey at the end of the call.

Go to a doctor who is part of a group practice, and you get a call asking you to rate your office visit.

T.D.: Tom Dryden's not here. He died after the doctor misdiagnosed his strep throat as an ectopic pregnancy.

Survey Taker: Before he expired did he happen to mention if he was a) completely satisfied and would recommend the practice to a friend, b) moderately satisfied, c) neither satisfied nor dissatisfied or d) completely dissatisfied and unlikely to recommend our practice?

Email surveys are easy. You can simply delete them from your in-box. Phone surveys, that arrive in the middle of dinner or while you are otherwise occupied, are harder to ignore.

I always inform callers that I had been satisfied until their company, which obviously thinks so little of its customers that it interrupts them at home with idiotic surveys, called while I was taking a shower, causing me to slip when I ran for the phone and break my leg. Now I'm completely dissatisfied, will never return and, in fact, plan to sue.

If all of us did that, perhaps the calls would stop.

Can't hurt to try it.


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