What do you think?
If you’re a retail worker, we’d like to hear your thoughts about customer satisfaction surveys. Are they a help or a hindrance? Do they help you to do your job better, or have you been unfairly criticized by a disgruntled customer? Contact this columnist at maryjomccarty@gmail.com.
The grocery store clerk glanced around the bustling store and confided, “I don’t like this season.”
At the book store, a cashier encouraged me to fill out a customer satisfaction survey, adding in a half-whisper, “If I don’t get a perfect score, it counts against me.” I have been told the same thing by other retail workers on several occasions.
Small wonder they aren’t crazy about Christmas.
Perfection? During the holidays?
True, we are bombarded, this time of year, with images of perfection. There are those overachievers who put up their lights well before Thanksgiving or Facebook friends who post photos of the neatly wrapped boxes under the tree weeks before most of us have started shopping.
My own house is cluttered with wrapping paper and untouched Christmas cards as I rush around running errands that never seem to get done. I would hate to be scored on my level of “perfection” — and my livelihood, thank God, doesn’t even depend on my efficiency in running a household.
As customer service surveys pop up like candy canes, I wonder about the additional pressure they could be imposing on service workers. Some people won’t be happy, after all, no matter how heroic your efforts. What if a perpetual malcontent deprived a hard-working employee of a bonus or a raise? Or earned them a reprimand instead of a much-needed word of praise?
There are, of course, many positive aspects to customer feedback — not the least of which is the potential for a better shopping experience. Dr. Serdar S. Durmusoglu, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Dayton, thinks the trend is a very positive one: “I think that more companies should be doing those things. It’s a way to gauge how well they are doing. The approach shouldn’t be to point fingers at employees, but to get feedback and do something to improve.”
Durmusoglu believes the customer satisfaction surveys send an important signal to employees: “It sends a message that customer service matters. Your ability to stay in business depends on your level of customer service.”
Instead of using the surveys to punish workers, employers should take the long view, Durmusoglu said. If an employee consistently earns low scores, they should be given additional training. And managers should remember that unhappy customers often are the ones completing surveys, “so don’t leap to conclusions,” he said. “Maybe managers are putting pressure on workers to get these perfect scores. They need to be trained and to understand that the main goal is how the customer perceives the company and how they can improve that.”
There are pros and cons with customer satisfaction surveys, according to Brigid Kelly, spokesperson for the Vandalia-based United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 75. While they can help to improve service, she said, the trend “puts pressure on people who already are being asked to move quickly and do more with less. That’s not just in our industry; most American workers are being squeezed the same way.”
Kelly experienced this during her own days in retail: “It was the day after Thanksgiving, and I had to be into work at 6 a.m. I will never forget this as long as I live — this woman came in with this huge order and she was so mean to me. And I kept thinking, ‘I am here because I am working, I have a job to do. You are choosing to be here. You don’t have to be so nasty.’”
The bottom line, Kelly added, is mutual respect: “If we have that, it will go a long way toward getting through the holidays.”
I always warn my children, “Never date someone who is rude to the waiter or the retail worker.”
Yet, based on a few whispered confidences from workers, I can’t help wondering if I unwittingly contribute to workers’ misery through customer satisfaction surveys. What if I am “satisfied” rather than “highly satisfied” with the speed of the checkout or the friendliness of the staff? That sounds like a good review; to their manager it may translate to substandard.
Most actual grownups, meanwhile, have figured out long ago that perfection is an unattainable human standard. It’s a theme that runs through many of my favorite films this year: “Boyhood,” “The Skeleton Twins,” “St. Vincent” and “The Theory of Everything.”
These are movies populated with very flawed people, yet in each case we find ourselves rooting for them, empathizing with them.
If we can do that with celluloid characters, how about trying it with the real-life folks who sell us our groceries and holiday gifts?
If we could all show each other a little more compassion this Christmas, I’d say that would be just about perfect.
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