If you’re gonna ask, you may as well listen

I don’t know what it is about having someone ask for your opinion, but it feels great. We spend so much time trying to get people to hear what we want to say that when someone willingly offers their unsolicited time to do it, well, it can be such a treat.

At least that’s the truth for me. I love it when people listen to me, especially when life gets crazy busy and I have a lot on my mind or when I have a customer service experience that has to be shared.

OK, especially when I have a customer service experience that has to be shared.

So you can imagine my delight when I get a phone call or email from a company asking for my feedback on a recent experience I had with them. This actually has happened a few times in the last couple of weeks since I’ve been spending more money than I make on the house I recently bought. I started to feel pretty popular because my phone was ringing a lot more than usual.

I know, pretty sad. But true nonetheless. Counting customer service follow-ups toward my popularity says a lot about my social life.

One of things I love about having a good friend is that when they ask you a question, they listen. They will set back, nod with you in agreement, show empathy at the right times and, best of all, not judge you at the end of a long (and possibly unnecessary) rant about the most trivial thing.

I can’t say the same thing about my recent feedback opportunities with Verizon, Charter Communications and my home warranty provider. Each of these companies must have surveys built into their service systems, requiring their employees to follow-up with all customers that call in and have inquiries. I say they must because each person that followed up with me sounded completely annoyed to be on the phone with me.In one case, I was actually interrupted and asked to be put on hold.

“But didn’t YOU call ME?” I asked?

“Please hold.”

If tone of voice is one indication that someone on the other end of a line is not actively listening, then the questions that you are asked is definitely another. In every single survey I agreed to take in the last couple of weeks, I was asked very direct answers and instructed to rate my experiences on some sort of sliding scale that suggested a was either “satisfied” or “not satisfied” with the company’s service. I was never given the chance to speak into the question to explain my answer.

Surveys can be a great tool to improve a business. For all the praise that quantitative analysis gets (particularly in the data-driven web world), qualitative surveys add another dimension to help a company truly understand how well they succeed at producing a positive customer experience. This includes allowing your survey participants to speak honestly and truthfully in their own words; not the words you made up for them and force them to use. What that does is change your qualitative analysis into a quantitative one.

I mean, as long as a company is going to ask they may as well listen as well. Especially if a customer is willing to spend precious time to sit and answer those questions for 10-15 minutes.

If I ran the customer service department for a company, I would not require surveys for every transaction we make. Surveys would be given at random and would use the sliding scale rating system that everyone seems to enjoy so much, but with an opportunity to elaborate on each selection if the participant elects to. Also, I would make sure my customer service representatives have the authority to fix problems on the spot and that the responses are used to adequately celebrate positive feedback and use constructive criticism to improve the way we treat customers. Easy as that.

In fact, the most important question to ask on a survey is the only one you really need: how can I help? It doesn’t get any more powerful than that.

The bottom line is that if a company is not able to listen to a customer like their best friend would, then contacting them for feedback is a complete waste of time for everyone involved.