Here’s an amusing/horrifying story about a customer survey process gone horribly wrong:
Me: “Sir. Why are you giving us bad grades on the survey? You said everything was good.”
Customer: “Oh. Everything was good. I just didn’t like the movie. It was confusing.”
Me: “Sir, the surveys are not for the film itself. They’re for the theater and our staff.”
Customer: “Oh, but I want the studios to know I didn’t like the movie.”
Me: “That’s not how these surveys work. We don’t make the films; we just show them. The surveys are for customers to give feedback on how we performed. It’s a common mistake people make, but I’m going to strongly encourage you not to submit that survey.”
Customer: “Why not?”
Read the full story. Can you spot all the things this company is doing wrong in its survey process? Here’s a partial list of mistakes I saw:
- The customer has to ask for a survey form, from the staff.
- The survey is designed in a way that it doesn’t deal with the (apparently common) problem of customers reviewing the movie not the theater.
- At least some customers think the survey goes to the studio, not the theater chain.
- Customers can fill out the form with staff watching, and the staff can apparently try to talk the customer out of the survey.
- Despite the flaws in the process, the survey is apparently used to fire and promote people.
- Even a single bad survey is enough to cause serious problems for the theater staff.
For extra credit: how would you design a feedback process for a movie theater which actually works for its intended purpose?
