When marketing professionals use a campaign tool long enough, it
becomes a meaningless tactic that offends and alienates customers.
Fifteen years ago, surveys were an excellent tool for engaging
customers. Today, companies assault people with shallow, patronizing
surveys. They use surveys to trick and bribe customers, rather than
truly find out how “to serve you better.” Because they have been
overused and misused, the survey has become a plague on customers that
companies should eradicate forever.
Back in the day, businesses needed creative methods to generate
two-way communications with large audiences. Then, as now, the
intelligence gleaned from surveying customers was often less important
than earning their respect by communicating with them, rather than selling to
them. By sending a mailing or engineering a phone survey once a year,
marketers could effectively break the cycle of invasive advertising and
sales calls.
The Internet now offers unlimited ways for companies to build and
maintain dialogues with customers. Combining e-mail, webinars,
instant messaging, and call centers, companies can use technology to
communicate with each customer segment in the way that best suits the
circumstance. With new media like Twitter, Blogs, Facebook and
whatever comes next, the options continue to grow.
But the good old survey has become omnipresent, like a
multiple-choice test in school. By adapting them for both the web and
CRM call-center technology, marketers use surveys to grade both
customers and employees. They gather boatloads of data to go over in
meetings and put into PowerPoint graphs to validate their strategies.
Telesales, once an effective channel, became so offensive that laws
were passed against it and no A-list companies consider it as part of
the mix. Customer surveys are not far behind.
John Ribbler