It\u2019s a hailstorm out there! Of surveys. Everybody wants you to fill out a questionnaire. Buy a donut \u2013 get a survey request. Go to the doctor \u2013 get a survey request. The only one I take is the Dunkin Donut survey, when they give you a free donut. You go on line and answer a bunch of questions. Even if you lie, you get a donut. Sometimes I\u2019m a 26-year-old female, have an income less than $20,000; my race is \u201cother\u201d. Other times, I\u2019m 80 years old, my income is off the chart, and I\u2019m male and claim I stop in at a Dunkin Donut outlet twice a day. <\/p>\n
Most businesses and many organizations have the survey bug. Often, it\u2019s a marketing consulting firm that tabulates the results. They draw up a bunch of graphs, put the results together in a glossy report and conduct a power point presentation for upper management. But, it\u2019s like going to the doctor and having your pulse taken on your kneecap. Useless (for the most part)! Just ask that 26-year-old female going around every day munching on a free donut. <\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter. The results LOOK scientific. The report is loaded with impressive statistical terms: mean, median, average, trending, etc. The process is a report card. And, like the ones I hated to bring home from school, the results are never good enough. Not for executive management anyhow. But, for me, it\u2019s an indictment of the management, not the employees. They have no idea what it\u2019s like to be a customer of their organization. <\/p>\n
Yet, the solution is simple \u2013 The people running the show need to be a customer. If the CEO of American Airlines, Douglas Parker, traveled (incognito) on one of his planes, sat in coach, scrunched his knees into the seat in front of him, got yelled at for having his seat in the recline position just before takeoff, even though it only inclines one inch, and had to jump into the narrow aisle designed for people 5 feet tall and under 100 pounds to shake out a leg cramp, then maybe, just maybe, he\u2019d run the airline to please the customers, not the bean counters. (Can you tell I\u2019ve recently flown on American Airlines?) <\/p>\n
If John Standley, the CEO of Rite Aid, tried to figure out how to get someone to cash him out at a row of empty checkout stations, the CEO of McDonalds, Stephen Esterbrook, witnessed a group of seniors trying to order their meal at the new kiosks, the Postmaster General, Megan Brennan, waited in line to buy a stamp and had to endure the sales pitch from the clerk that her executive staff mandate be asked, they\u2019d never need to bother customers and waste money on surveys. They\u2019d know firsthand, the answer to the question, \u201cHow\u2019re we doing?\u201d They\u2019d know and we\u2019d all be better off. <\/p>\n