“Remoted” – Day 529 (Friday)

Summer is winding down and it seems we are now in the height of survey season. It’s completely understandable that companies want feedback from their customers about their products, services, and performance. We conduct surveys at my work of both customers and team members, so I get it, and apparently, so does every other company and service provider on the planet. A voluntary survey on a receipt is one thing, but dang, I’m tired of being bombarded and badgered with text and email surveys.

In the past couple weeks alone, requests to complete surveys have been received from the chiropractor’s office, the plumbing company that installed the water tank, the company providing the 401k at work, and the produce company from whom my orders have dwindled since their ordering format was changed.

I’m burned out on surveys (among other things), especially the ones that drag on for a million screens and lack the choice for my actual answer. If I didn’t answer the first request, I am probably not interested, but go ahead, keep bugging me and see what answers you get.

Fresh, but crushed

The produce company wanted to know why I haven’t been ordering lately. There are multiple reasons, including the new $30 minimum order which means buying stuff I don’t want to meet the minimum. Once received, there is the dealing with the science experiments that happen before I can use the stuff. The last few times I ordered, the boxes arrived battered and some of the contents were broken. 

During recent order attempts, there weren’t even all the ingredients to make a salad. Some weeks there would be 15 varieties of lettuce, but no tomatoes. Then it would be a bunch of different tomatoes, but no lettuce or cukes. In the same amount of time needed to shop their website, I can take my $30 minimum, go to Market Basket, and return with an entire order of things I want. One of my suggestions on the produce survey was to change shippers, because I received a lot of beaten up boxes  containing broken items.

As for the 401k provider, their survey featured several questions with a 10-item radio button scale ranging from “would definitely not recommend” to “would highly recommend.” First, I didn’t choose this company, it came with the benefits package. I rarely visit the website because I can never remember my password, it’s a pain in the neck to log into, there isn’t much I can do about the performance of my 401k, and monitoring it just stresses me out. After several nagging requests to my work email to complete their customer satisfaction survey, I finally did it this morning. They were bestowed a 5 out of 10 on every single question, my equivalent of “don’t care.” Would I recommend them to anyone? I don’t know. Anyone I would speak to about investing (basically nobody) would likely be an individual and my experience as one of hundreds of participants in a company sponsored 401k plan won’t matter anyway. This survey had no option for a free form response, so it felt like they didn’t really want to know what I really think.

The plumbing company seems very eager to hear what I think. They’ve asked twice by email and twice by text. The first three feedback requests were about the service call. To start, the crew was four hours late. The sacrifice of an entire vacation spent waiting for them to arrive, then leave and return with the water tank, then install it did not make for my favorite vacation day of an otherwise crappy vacation week in an overall crappy month. 

I have avoided unloading on them, but if they keep pushing, they will get an earful. Two days after the installation, I called to ask for a receipt which had not been received yet. The office person called a couple days later to verify I received the receipt, then tried to sell me a maintenance plan. After that,  there was a text to provide feedback about the phone call. Relentless! 

I've lost count of how many surveys had what I saw to be flaws in the answer options. Too many surveys don’t have an option for "not applicable" and force answers that don’t apply. One demanded answers to questions about children and other household members I don’t have. Amazon loves to ask for reviews of individual Whole Foods grocery items, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to review every can of beans and bag of chips I buy. Enough!

Catch me in the right mood, and I will thoughtfully answer the survey. Keep bugging me about it, and it might not be very civil