Why I Deleted Your Survey

“Dear Mr. Reichheld,” the survey request began. “Thank you for staying at [our hotel]. Your opinion is important and to prepare for your next visit, we would like to hear more about your recent stay.”

Then came the kicker: “This survey will take around 10 to 15 minutes…” That’s when I stopped reading.

I had stayed at this hotel on a business trip to Chicago. On the same trip, I took a limo to the airport. I flew one way on one airline and home on another. I rented a car, had lunch at a local restaurant and ate dinner somewhere else. If each of these companies asked for 10 or 15 minutes of my time—as several did, joining the daily survey blitzkrieg on my inbox—I’d be spending almost two hours filling out surveys!

Sorry, but I’m going to hit “delete” every time I get such a request.

It isn’t just that I have better things to do with that hour or two. It’s also that I have no confidence that my survey responses would lead to any meaningful changes. Even if I took the 10 or 15 minutes, I’m pretty certain that I would never hear back from any of the vendors. I can almost guarantee that they’d take no action in response to my answers.

So many companies today suffer from survey diarrhea, constantly bombarding their customers with long, pointless surveys. It must be contagious, because I see so many companies doing it.

In most cases, the marketing department designs the survey, often with the help of an external vendor. A team collects the responses and analyzes the statistics—searching for magical “key drivers.” And months later, executives might ponder whether to tweak this or that aspect of the company’s products or services in response. No one even expects to respond to individual compliments or complaints. And there’s no procedure for taking quick action to change customer-unfriendly policies and processes.

Even on the aggregate level, you have to ask how good those statistics really are. The only customers who fill out the surveys are those who have time on their hands, so it’s probably not a representative group. As for those who don’t have the time, what message are those companies sending them with their constant requests? Clearly, they don’t consider their customers’ time very valuable.

When I designed the Net Promoter System, I wanted to ensure that the feedback it produces would be both accurate and actionable. That’s why companies using Net Promoter correctly ask just two questions, generating high response rates. It’s why the data goes directly to frontline managers and employees for an immediate response. Closing the loop—letting customers know they’re being heard, and then taking action to correct problems—is what really builds customer loyalty. A company learns what its customers are really thinking. Customers learn that the company really cares.

So the next time you get a survey, ask yourself whether it’s worth your time to fill out, and whether you expect anything to happen if you do. If either answer is no, do what I do—throw it on the electronic trash heap. Maybe someday the companies we patronize will get the message.

In this short video, my colleague Rob Markey and I discuss the origins of the Net Promoter System's central question:

Related: From Feedback to Action