Customer Feedback Request Overuse Leads to Feedback Fatigue

I suppose the first recorded instance of something similar to customer feedback was unsolicited.

In The Beginning...

"Did you eat the forbidden fruit?"God asked. A simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed.

"It's the fault of that woman you made," said Adam. "It's the fault of that snake you made," said Eve.

Sensing that his creations were unable to get along harmoniously inside the Garden, God banished them to an existence of getting along inharmoniously outside. And humans, having a tendency to give unsolicited feedback, began to solicit unoffered feedback. Since then, the hunger of business for customer feedback has been seemingly insatiable.

"How was your service today? a burger restaurant inquires on its register receipt, "Call this number and complete a survey for a chance to win $1,000!" The receipt from a home improvement store urges you to "Take an online survey for a chance to win $10,000!"

An Online Customer Survey

I voluntarily began an online survey once, lured by the promise that I would receive a football jersey for my trouble. Forty questions in, I decided I had already waited 20 questions too long to terminate my participation in the survey. I closed the survey window and forfeited my chance for the jersey, never knowing if I was only a question or two away from success when I quit.

An Oil Change Customer Survey

When I have my car's engine oil changed, the dealership always wants to know in detail just how excellent its service was.

It's an oil change.

Now, I actually heard a horror story once about a friend of a friend who requested an oil change from another car dealership but got only half a change. They drained the old oil but forgot to replace it with new oil. This had unfortunate consequences for the engine that were worse than those of continued operation with dirty oil. Unless my dealership does something that bad, however, I'm unlikely to be able to tell a "good" oil change from a "bad" one. There just doesn't seem to be that much to comment about. The old oil (if I bothered to look) was black and the new oil (if I bother to look) is a clear, golden color. Yay.

A Furnace-Installation Customer Survey

I had the furnace in my house replaced several years ago. The two young men the company sent to work on this project made it clear that receiving favorable comments in the mail after their visit was very, very important to them. They were polite and even took off their muddy boots before entering my house so I sent in a complimentary comment about their work the next day.

Unfortunately, when the city code inspector reviewed the furnace installation several days afterward, he found some technical deficiencies in the work. This meant I had to take another afternoon off work and invite the nice furnace guys back to fix their original installation.

A month later, warmer but wiser, I was listening to the radio during my drive to work when an advertisement came on for the company that had installed my new furnace. As part of the ad, the radio announcer read a recently received, glowingly favorable, customer comment. Yep, it was mine...

Yet Another Customer Survey?

Sometimes, I'd love to simply purchase and enjoy a product or service without being urged to respond to a feedback survey. A sandwich shop receipt recently tried to coax me onto a Web survey site by promising a free sandwich coupon for my trouble. No way!

If you want my opinion these days, you've got to offer something prettyspecial in return. I'm holding out for a $10,000 prize or---maybe---a football jersey...