So, last September, I bought a car. It’s a nice car. I like it. I have not had cause to go back to the dealer and complain about anything, so all is fine.
This, however, hasn’t stopped the mailshots and emails requesting that I complete a customer satisfaction survey. They are all at it these days. I bought a battery charger from Halfords a couple of weeks back and was bombarded with “how did we do?” emails. I haven’t complained, so take it as read that it was okay and I’m happy with the purchase.
Since September, I’ve had a number of solicitations to complete this survey and have ignored them. Now you would think that this would be a sufficient enough hint that I won’t be completing it. The mailshot from IPSOS Mori contained what amounted to a book of several pages of questions about stuff I don’t even think about, let alone answer questions on. Besides which, who has the time and inclination to complete this stuff? Then today another email reminding me that according to their records I had still not completed the survey.
Well, no, I know this. I don’t do surveys – never have and never will. If I have a problem, I’ll let you know. If not, well, assume that I’m content. As it is, I’m not spending ages wading through a pile of idiotic questions.
Yes, I’m a little irritated… I would like to buy a product just for once without being endlessly pestered by survey companies asking what I think about it. I don’t think anything. I buy the product and use it for its intended purpose. If I like it, I might in time buy another. If I don’t, I might buy something else – but I might buy something else anyway just for a change (see my record of motorcycle purchases). Either way, pestering me for feedback just annoys me. If you ask once and I don’t get back to you, take the hint.
Amazon do this well. The review system is very useful when making a purchase and if a product is especially good (or bad) I may be inclined to leave some feedback. They never nag you though – all the time you are happy Amazon are content to leave you alone and wait for the next purchase.
Yes, that’s precisely how it should work.
I have another gripe. They ask you to complete thei survey just after you’ve bought whatever it is before you’ve had any chance to decide whether you like it. Ridiculous. And then they nag you.
That, too. You’ve barely had time to get it out of the box. In the case of the car, I was being harangued within a day or so of the purchase.
All I want is to buy the product and be left alone.
I find the most infuriating are survey requests from monopoly suppliers – I see this a lot in corporate environments.
“How likely are you to recommend this IT service to a colleague?”
Very unlikely, it took 3 weeks to get a laptop connected to the network. Oh, wait, there is no other way to get this done other than jump through the internal IT hoops so it’s all bullshit. Delete email.
“How likely are you to recommend this IT service to a colleague?”
In what version of reality do people go around recommending IT services to “colleagues”? Certainly not the one I inhabit and especially not in the Days of the Chyna Bat Koof!
The most absurd surveys we get are from the hospital asking if we would recommend the treatment we received. My last one effectively asked “Would you recommend your bladder scan to a friend?”
I had one following a visit to A&E a few weeks back. Like the IPSOS Mori one, it was several pages long wanting to know the ins and outs of everything. I ignored the first one so they sent another… and another.
I was being pestered by Curry’s/PC World to complete a “how did we do” survey several days before I had actually received the item.
The thing that really irks me with these survey things is they demand you give them all sorts of information for free…. in response to them wanting money from you for the product in question. If you want a review or survey, either give me the product for free to review or pay me for my time…. otherwise… go jump, I’m giving you as much for free as you gave me.
Given the length of these things, I would anticipate around an hour to complete. Not least given that they tend to ask stuff to which I have no answer. So, yes, why should we give our time for free?
Maybe that would cramp their style – answer the survey with an invoice for the time spent on it.
One thing I’ve noticed over the past few years is firms asking if you want a copy of the receipt emailed to you- I always refuse as inevitable you then get surveys and other spam from them.
The only company I do this with is Screwfix, and to be fair they don’t spam you. Everyone else though I refuse for the same reason.
Just lie. Fill their stpid database up with the most unlikely (anthough not abusive) garbage you can think of, then spend the rest of the day happy that you’ve done your bit to clog their system up
This is also why when I order things online (except for Amazon and eBay), I use a specific email address so that I can block it individually if it gets abusive or annoying. So for Curry’s, for example, I setup my email as [email protected] even though (by default) I receive all email to mydomainname.com
If Curry’s start getting annoying, I just block all email to “[email protected]” and hear nothing more from them.
John
Same here, been doing that for at least 20 years now
A domain & email is <£10pa, why people still use their ISP or hotmail etc confounds me
I didn’t used to put numbers in the emails, but spammers started sending email to things like forbes@*.com and motleyfool@*.com so I started adding random numbers into the email address as well.
After all these years, decades even, we still have no solution that blocks spam without also potentially blocking non-spam.
MS abysmal ‘solution’ on hotmail, outlook and outlook365 is:
Any new sender is Spam: goes in spam or bounced with ‘recipient doesn’t exist’
If email is recovered from spam and replied to, sender still blocked until user manually whitelists
Worse is much of public sector and more now use Office/Outlook 365, but don’t know what’s happening
PS My backup Gmail account bounces, not spam folder, every email from microsoft.com – lunacy
It get tedious, doesn’t it
I always ignore tham but two weeks agao I actually filled one in. It was a ‘How did we do’ from the RAC after a breakdown. I totally berated them for an appauling service and told them they wouldn’t get another penny out of me and I’d never recommend them to anyone
I never heard anything back. They probably didn’t read it or just don’t give a crap anyway
When I was auditing track safety training, one of the questions I had to ask was, what do you do about customer feedback. Always the answer was the same. We give out questionnaires and then file them ready for the audit.
Haven’t checked price or reviews for years, but GEM (GEM Motoring Assist) and Greenflag were two that surpassed AA & RAC
Might have a look. It wasn’t the mechanic that was the problem, it was the bloody phone operator. Don’t know if one company will be better than any other in that respect
I’ve not had that problem. BMW assistance introduced a mobile web version. I couldn’t get the damned thing to work, so ended up phoning them. But I’ve always found both them and the RAC OK and reasonably timely.