The purchase process had not been totally smooth, but compared to other similar purchases, I would have given them a 4 on scale of 1-5. Only the survey didn't ask me for that kind of feedback. In fact, I was thrown for a loop at the questions they did ask me. They never asked me the basic questions about my satisfaction. They kept asking me why I had purchased from their website (which on the surface is a fair question), and the answers were these canned things that sounded strangely like management objectives for their website team. I had to answer the same question twice, each time with different options. I wasn't given the chance to say what I thought, I had to select between which of their goals I thought they had met.
Not only were the questions they asked off from what I expected, the answers were skewed even more. It was so obvious that they designed the survey entirely so they could report to upper management that the website had met its management goals.
I know a bit about designing surveys and about the statistical analysis behind them, having taken a graduate course in applied statistics and writing a major paper based on recreating a national survey for a small, localized audience. Perhaps this makes me a bad choice to complete a survey even though it drives me to offer my feedback when asked.
At any rate, I was so frustrated by the poor design of the survey that I decided to provide additional feedback on the survey and that part of my experience. At the end, there was an email address for such feedback, and I took advantage of it. I told them what was frustrating about the experience and why I thought they would not get valid results because of the flaws in the survey design.
Today, I received an email response to my email feedback. On the surface, the first paragraph seemed cordial and thoughtful. However, in the second paragraph, the writer let me have it, explaining that I was wrong (of course) and inserting a page from the survey to prove it.
My initial response to the email shifted immediately, as soon as the passive/aggressive attack on me began. I did read the note all of the way through to the end, and decided that the writer was not able to hear what I was saying, so repeating myself would do no one any good, least of all me.
I deleted the email.
A couple of hours later, I found myself struggling a bit with my work, and suddenly this volcano of seething anger began to rumble deep inside of me. Rather than walk away from the project with a short break, I found myself thinking back through that horrible example of customer service I had deleted. And I realized that I did have a response. I went through my trash bin, found the note, and quiped back this response:
Wow. Thanks for proving to me that you were right and I was wrong. What a brilliant strategy for rebuilding a good relationship with me. Or am I completely wrong yet again? (I'm sure you will update me accordingly.)
Apparently, that volcanoe is full of piss and vinegar. My public service announcement for the day: Don't cut me off in traffic today.
2 comments:
Did you ever receive a response from your piss and vinegar e-mail?
Nope. I figure that someone used it to show how horrible it is to deal with the public, isn't she a bitch sort of thing. But maybe someone was able to hear the nugget of truth I buried deep inside the vinegar.
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