Surveying

There is something of a reputation in the States for pretty high standards of customer service - largely, as it seems, they usually hold true to the adage of 'The customer is always right' as opposed to 'the customer is right when i WANT them to be right' that seems to be followed in a lot of UK shops (along with the 'The customer is an irritation to my standing here doing nothing' that goes hand in hand with it). Generally, i haven't had too many complains about the staff over here - apart from their tendency to harass you when you're just really just browsing and that they carry on conversations with colleagues either around you, or sometimes through you. But, hey, those things are rife in the UK in places as well (apart from the harassing maybe). However, one thing that i don't think has caught on fully in the UK yet is the chance to offer feedback - often by the placing of customer service forms in prominent places in the shop.

But, of course, here in the US, things go even further than that. A few times, now, i have been to a variety of shops for various services and then received a call a day or so later from a representative with a 'follow-up' survey as to how my 'shopping experience' was. Not only does this come down to phone calls, but also e-mails as well. I got an e-mail from the hotel where i stayed in California (where the conference was). Not really wanting to bother with it (it seemed to be rather length), I deleted it only to receive another email (deleted), a third email (deleted) and finally, after getting a FOURTH email within two days, I caved in and filled in the survey. I just wish there was a question about 'How did you find the subsequent email harassment for this survey? a) satisfactory, b) very satisfactory, c) who cares, cause we're not gonna look anyway. And that's the$64,000 dollar question really. Do these surveys actually go somewhere and get analyzed meaningfully? Or do they merely get glanced at and ignored. The cynic in me says the latter, but i'm not sure what everyone else thinks. Maybe i should take a survey of my own to find out...