Thursday, January 12, 2012

Survey: How Satisfied Are You with Your Survey Experience?

If you’re like a lot of business owners -- specifically, all of them -- you have at one point or another hired a survey company to plumb the fascinating depths of your customers’ or website visitors’ minds. Whether by robocall or in the form of one of those well-loved pop-up boxes, you’ve let another company’s machine ask your customers how much money they make, how they heard about your firm, and how they would rank your surly underpaid staff on a scale of “excellent” to “here’s your justification for not giving anyone a raise.”

But when the data came in and the check to the survey-taking company had cleared, something surprising happened: nothing. Contrary to the survey company’s sincere and absolute faith in surveys, no one was there surveying you about how you liked your survey.

Well, here’s your opportunity to make your voice heard! After all, survey-company-hiring companies are surveyable people, too! As they say, “Your opinion counts!” So please take this short survey:

HOW SATISFIED ARE YOU WITH YOUR SURVEY EXPERIENCE?

1. I hired a survey service because:

a. Asking questions then forcing people to put their answers in my words instead of their own makes me feel big.

b. I just naturally assumed that my customers/website visitors enjoy being badgered.

c. Spending profits on B2B services is just so much more fun than paying a dividend.

d. It’s a prestige thing -- it shows that you have so many customers you can afford to alienate thousands of them.

e. The survey company salesgirl was wearing a low-cut top.


2. The one thing I most hoped the survey would reveal was:

a. How I can get more money out of my customers.

b. How I can get more money out of my customers without actually interacting with them.

c. How my customers feel about my employees’ treating them like shit.

d. How I could use meaningless statistics to help me sound smart in staff meetings.


3. When you learned that the pop-up box announcing the survey would contain the phrase “We value your opinion!” you:

a. Laughed

b. Laughed contemptuously

c. Actually bought it for a second, then laughed at your own gullibility


4. Finish this sentence: “When I received my survey results, I immediately ...”

a. Planned to look at them in the future.

b. FedExed them to the department that deals with such things even though I’m not sure what department that is.

c. Composed imaginary arguments in my head with negative respondents, putting their stupid asses in place with my decisive, scathing rejoinders.


5. I would describe myself as a

a. Chump

b. Voyeur

b. Control freak

(Note, to answer “savvy businessperson,” select “a” above.)


6. How long did it take you to realize you were sold a completely worthless service?

a. Six months

b. One week

c. Till about the time the ink was dry on the 10-year, 20-survey contract

d. Say what?


6. The last time you actually listened, in person, to a customer’s opinion, you:

a. Left your body

b. Wished you had swine flu so you could cough on them

c. Coughed on them anyway

d. Suggested that the customer was the one who screwed up their oil change, gave your hotel bed bugs, or incited your customer-service rep to violence


When you have completed this survey, please e-mail us your Social Security Number, Visa and MasterCard number, mother’s maiden name, and name of your first pet, then collect your own responses and do with them whatever you did with your own customers’ responses.



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