What's Your Opinion?

                 How often do you speak with someone on the phone, then immediately get a survey to fill out?  Several times a week, right? Sometimes several times a day! 

    Give us a one-to-five rating.

    Was the person courteous?

    Did they solve your problem?

    Would you recommend us to your friends?

    Can you please write a review on every social media platform that exists?

                On and on.

                But I’ll bet you’re like me: Even if I give a high rating, that doesn’t mean I’m now hoping for 15 to 30 minutes of follow-up questions.

                It wasn’t too many years ago that this was unheard of. Maybe it blossomed with cell phones or internet searches.  But few of us have the time or motivation to spend that much time evaluating.

                I’m tempted to send a survey back:

    How was I as a customer? Give me a one-to-five rating.

    Did I spend enough money at your business?

    Did I present too difficult a problem?

    Did I keep your employee on the phone too long?

    Did I hang up midway through and force you to call back?

    Did I have roosters crowing in the background?

    Did I understand your language?

    Did I fill out your forms completely?

    Can you please write a novel extoling my virtues?

                Thank goodness there’s a delete button. (But then what if the delete people want to send me a review?)

                It’s not too late to buy my book, A LITTLE CHRISTMAS PRAYER for everyone on your gift list! It’s perfect for anyone of any faith. Just $3.49!

Survey THIS

           Have you taken enough surveys, yet?  Tech support, online companies—everyone wants a piece of your time and your expert evaluation. 

          I know a guy who sells cars, and if his customers don’t rate him “Truly Outstanding” he can get fired. Let me ask you this:  Have you ever bought a car—any car—and considered the experience “truly outstanding”?  

          Do you even have five experiences in your lifetime that you would call truly outstanding?  So what does a guy have to do, to leave you with that kind of buzz, after shelling out a huge chunk of your earnings?  Should he juggle and sing?  Send you off with a parade?  Offer to put your kids through college?  Now that would be truly outstanding.

          I’ll tell you who never does surveys:  The very folks you’d like to rate.  The places where the service is so abominable that you honestly wonder if there’s a hidden camera somewhere, and this whole thing is a set-up.  Airlines who bump and overbook, then lose your luggage.  Repair shops where you swear you’re invisible, standing for ten minutes before you’re acknowledged.  Supermarkets where the only conversation you hear from the checker and the bagger is about their breaks, their next vacation, and how long they’ve been working that day.

          The place that really needs to hand out survey forms is the doctor’s office. Ironically, this is the only place where you actually have the time to fill one out.

      Was your wait reasonable?  Are you kidding me?  Next time I’m arriving with a tool box, and I’m going to say, “Oh, take your time.  I’ll just tinker while I wait.”

      Were you treated with courtesy?  What—weighed in like livestock then put into a paper smock and locked up in a cold cell?

      Was your stay pleasant?  No; it was like visiting a house of horrors—the wall “art” is a bunch of free posters from pharmaceutical companies, showing close ups of festering puss, swollen membranes, and runny eyes.  Someone needs to tell physicians that while this stuff may fascinate them, it is the very reason the rest of us did not pursue medicine as a career.  There’s a reason why skin is opaque, you know.  Surely they can afford something else for the walls, and save the gooey skin cancer pictures in an album.

          Makes you wonder how medicine might change if doctors knew they had to get a “Truly Outstanding” rating from their patients.  You want medical reform?  Start with a survey their license depends upon.  Now that’s the one survey I’d be happy to fill out.

But you can pass the time while waiting by reading one of my books!