June 4, 2021 - Please Rate and Review!

You know those little “Please rate our service” text or email surveys you get from some outfits, after you’ve done business there?

I got one yesterday from my periodontist, and it arrived pretty much the moment I got home from a grueling, four-hour surgical procedure. It asked, “Did you leave our office with a smile on your face?”

I mean, they just saw me leave. I was looped on Valium, draped over my husband, staggering and maybe moaning a bit. The surgery took an hour longer than planned. Was there a smile on my face? A little convex mirror over the door would give them all the info they needed on this point. What a dumb question.

I tried to get a problem resolved with CenturyLink, but the customer service person dropped my call. Seeing as she knew my number and all, did she call back? No, but I got the survey text right away: Was my problem resolved? Nope. Well, thank me for my feedback!

It would be so refreshing if their automated answer to “No,” was a jaunty, “We aren’t going to do anything about that, but better luck next time!”

The folks at Walgreen’s and Office Depot always write their names on the receipts, and ask humbly that I go online and give them a rating of 10.  The car mechanic’s surveys ask me to rate my experience, which will only take three minutes. The “hunks” from the place that promised hunks would come haul away our old mattress offered me $20 off if I’d rate them both with a 5, and say they were tall, handsome, and had good heads of hair. I asked them to take their hats off, then agreed. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks.

I’m all for data, all for measuring things in order to improve. But I’m not convinced that the surveys and the ratings are leading to improvement. When humans have to ask for a rating, it feels a bit debased. When automated programs thank me for saying No, my problem wasn’t resolved, it feels equally wrong. 

I could imagine that there would be some value to learning that one Mazda dealership got consistently lower ratings than all the others, but there has to be another way. The surveys feel like a fad that has gotten out of control. And I’m tired of all the texts and emails – they don’t make me like those companies any better.

I even wrote to a couple of the places and said Too Much! But for all that, I just lied to the periodontist, and said Yes, I left with a smile on my face. I do not want to annoy those people. They have sharp implements.  Better than dull implements, I know, I know.