What is it with customer service these days? Is there a slimy consultant offering up advice based on faulty data collection?
I just returned from holiday where we were given numerous “ Tell Us How We Did” surveys along with the check. While I appreciate the request, and am all for capturing customer voice, I was shocked at the construction of the surveys.
Most surveys had the typical five questions (food, ambiance, service—and the ever popular “How did you find us? and “Will you return?”) Boring but predictable BUT it was the choice of responses I was allowed that was SO SHOCKING:
- Poor
- Fair
- Excellent
There are two issues with the scoring scale they offered. First, having only three options allows people to select the easy route of just picking the middle option. Second, the wording choices are loaded and do not show an accurate, equal spread of possible reactions to the situation; two of the three options trended toward the negative and the remaining option was so glowing that I would award it only if the food and service floated in with a cloud of pixie dust. In the end, both of these issues are a direct result of a poorly designed assessment (see Wikipedia’s description of construct validity for more on this).
What is the deal? One would assume that the restaurant wants honest feedback, but with their score sheet offering, most of the remarks they receive will be negative. Putting on my cynical hat – was this some scam perpetuated by an outside source whose aim was to sell customer service training? Please tell me no… No…NO!
How can we put an end to this travesty?
- Refuse to answer the three option monster and let the restaurant know they are collecting bad data
- Provide a bit of value by creating a fourth column and adjusting the language (if needed)
- Writing a note about the food, service, ambiance and concern that the score sheet trends negative
Do your best to stop bad data collection. I would have loved to share that the fries were over seasoned, but I just couldn’t participate in the survey the way it was presented.
Support the score sheets that have integrity….rid the world of the ones that try to collect negative data.
Join us and change the world…one assessment at a time. Let’s toast to the change.
