If you want a booming business, you have to create raving fans.
— Ken Blanchard
Want to turn a raving fan into a raging one?
Send him another goddamn survey.
"What’s the deal with so many companies sending surveys after you interact with them?" David Meerman Scott recently asked. "It is crazy for a company to do this."
I think it's worse than crazy.
I think it's psychopathic.
In their quest to "engage" us, marketing and customer-service managers have so abused the survey, they've turned a valid instrument into a vicious irritant.
It's time for customers to strike back.
Here are the 10 new rules for answering customer surveys:
1. Drop everything and respond to every survey immediately, regardless of the time-investment. Senders will think you're serious. You might even win a prize.
3. When asked to describe yourself, always answer "I Am The Walrus."
4. Answer every Likert scale question in the negative. ("Never," "Very poor," "Not at all important," "Strongly disagree," etc.)
5. For all other types of rating questions, answer by choosing the worst rating. (For example, "Extremely unprofessional," "Extremely dissatisfied," "Not at all helpful," etc.)
6. Regardless of its purpose, answer every multiple-choice question "None of the above" or "Other." When asked to specify "Other," always answer "Everybody's got one."
7. Answer all binary scale questions "No."
9. When ask to supply "Additional comments," always answer "Comments, comments, comments, comments."
10. When asked to suggest improvements, always answer "Send me money, not surveys."
"Each time you contact a customer you should be providing something of value," David Meerman Scott says.
Rule 10 reinforces his sage advice.
So go ahead: apply these rules to your next survey.
