The Problem With Survey Culture

You may have heard of tipping culture - the idea that especially after the pandemic, the expectation (real or implied) to tip for everything is out of control. Is there a similar idea for survey culture? If not, there should be. Nearly every service or product you could use or consume comes with a survey, asking “How did we do?”

The worst is when a company ties it to their employee’s performance, putting them at the mercy of fickle strangers who may take out their bad day on whichever employee happened to help them. I felt particularly grossed out when I received a call from a car service department (which will remain unnamed) who asked me to take their survey, and then told me to lie when the survey asked if I was told to take the survey.

We need to return to the before times when my money was my stamp of approval, and if I had a real problem, I’d ask for the manager and maybe even a refund. You have to pay me to do paperwork for you. I’m done with it. Sorry, but if I want to leave a review, it will be with a third party service. In general, it’s thumbs up or thumbs down, or nothing. Nothing is good. It means you were ok, and ok is usually good enough. More often than not, ok is what I paid for.