Can Surveying Customers Drive Them Away?
A European colleague has asked me whether it isn’t possible to drive customers away by simply asking them to complete a survey about customer satisfaction. That is, can the act of soliciting for a survey actually be a turn-off for customers all by itself?
My instinct is yes, because I personally have encountered many instances of companies trying to take too much of my time, as their customer, to answer questions for their own benefit. I know this sounds terrible, for someone as concerned with customer service as I am, but I rarely elect to participate in comprehensive satisfaction surveys myself, unless I feel I have an unusual perspective, or I have an interest in the company’s success, possibly because I’m already a very loyal customer, or there’s some monetary or other benefit in it for me. Are you that way, too?
One of the reasons I like the Net Promoter Score is the fact that it seems so easy for a customer to participate. NPS doesn’t “use up” a lot of customer patience or attention span. But some academics have significant problems with NPS and it’s clearly not a panacea. (To review a comprehensive discussion of NPS’s advantages and weaknesses, read my "NPS - Valid or Not?" blog entry and readers' responses to it.)
The problem is, I don’t know of any hard data in this area. Does anyone have hard data? Has this been measured by anyone?
Related Entries
- Sprint Banks Its Future on Enhanced Customer Engagement
- Temkin Group's Bruce Temkin: Nine Pieces of Advice About Net Promoter Score
- Forrester's Harley Manning: Want To Raise Your Net Promoter Score? Try Improving Your Customer Experience
