Tell Me How I'm Doing
One Person's Good is Another Person's Excellent
I went to Kohl's the other day to return an Amazon purchase. After dropping off a box, I browsed around the women's clothing department and could not leave without purchasing a sweater. It is sweater season -- my favorite time of year -- so in the spirit of the season, I bought a sweet little hunter green number and could not wait to try her on!
The cashier was as pleasant as she could be. She even chitchatted a bit about Halloween with me. As she tore off the receipt from the register, she pulled out a red pen and circled some information down at the bottom.
She explained there was a survey that would only take a few minutes to complete, and if I gave her an excellent survey, she might win a $500 bonus from an employee incentive promotion. Feeling charitable, I agreed to complete the survey.
To my surprise, she directed me to a woman standing at the exit with a jar full of dark chocolate candies. The second woman was anchored there to instruct people on how to complete the survey with an app -- right then and there. Apparently, my contribution to customer service research was worth two pieces of dark chocolate. It seemed like a behavioral conditioning experiment to me. Complete survey. Receive chocolate.
Have you noticed that everything a service person does for you requires the completion of a survey? Was your customer service representative helpful? Would you recommend this donut shop to your friends? Were you delighted with your dinner? Did your server chat you up enough? Or too much? Was there anything about your flight that you were less than ecstatic about? (I'm grateful the plane made its descent to the tarmac in one piece, but that little bump at the end was a bit unsettling. I'd rate it fair. The pilot needs to try harder.)
These kinds of rating surveys are dreadfully ambiguous, and rather annoying, in my opinion. I rarely give anything an excellent or a worst ever rating because I imagine things could always be better -- or worse.
I gave the Kohl's cashier an excellent rating because I didn't want to knock her out of the running for the $500 bonus. Now, if she had brought my car to the front door and carried my package to the car, that would have been delightfully excellent!
Every time I go to a doctor or have a test, I receive an email with a bloody survey.
"How was your colonoscopy?"
"Good, I guess," was my response.
Apparently, that was not good enough. "What was missing or could be improved to earn a higher rating?"
"It was a colonoscopy!"
What would make a colonoscopy excellent? Besides, what's wrong with good? Is good not good?
Now, I feel like I have to defend my answer.
"I'm sorry, but your response is not satisfactory."
Now the rating survey is rating me! WTF!
Not only that, you are asked to rate every person with whom you come into contact, including the registration clerk.
"Was the registration clerk cordial?"
"She did her job. She didn't offer me a hot beverage, but that's okay. Her performance of her duties was satisfactory."
No wonder every kid playing flag football and peewee soccer needs a trophy! We can't even tolerate satisfactory!
I know this is hard for some people, but in the real world we can't all be excellent at once. Someone has to be good or fair, or even worst ever.
Anyway, I do hope the cashier wins the $500. I like my sweater, and the chocolate was good.
Could it have been excellent? Possibly. There were only two pieces.
When the survey about this article arrives in your inbox, please give it---and the author---an excellent rating.
I'd give you two pieces of dark chocolate, but I've already eaten them.
