Way too Funny! How I wish I was the regional manager for that store. Only poor evaluations would be accepted as valid.

I do that for both the BK & Wendy's surveys.
It's just faster.

Wouldn't the fact that there are a lot of 5 ratings for this location send up some red flags?

It's like the scummy car dealerships that would give you a free (insert crappy add-on here) if you rated them highly at the manufacturer's survey, in spite of the fact that they treated you like crap. No wonder most of the BK's in my area have gone out of business...and hopefully the rest will follow suit before long. (Not to mention that BK is simply nasty as well.)

Don't you get a free sandwich regardless of how you rate them? I know Papa Murphy's has a similar deal, but they always get top ratings from me because they earn them.

That's nothing. At Gamestop, our manager told us, the employees (this is a major, major no no, just in case someone somehow doesn't know this) to take the survey, and take it often. He also lied to several employees who asked if they could win the prize for taking the survey.

There are no bounds to the lengths some middle men will go to to look just a little better for the big guy.

@scootinger: It's better than McD's.

@Mobius: Yes. Yes, you do.

My brother takes advantage of these surveys, regardless of what you answer, you get a free sandwich.

I am convinced nobody reads these anyway. I had a problem with an Arby's once, so I did the survey and sent a separate email. I got an automated receipt back, nothing else. A couple of weeks later I received automated follow up email asking "Did anyone contact you?" I answered that I had not been contacted. Again, no response. This was months ago.

@scootinger: How are they going to know? I'd tell them okay and them rate them down anyway. What are they going to do about, get mad at you for screwing them as they tried to scam the system?

@scootinger: Well, giving you something free may not be crappy, you have to weigh it out. I wasn't thrilled with my experience last time I bought a car, but I did get the price I wanted, and for the favorable review I got an extra set of floor mats. Yes, I know I'm a very cheap review-whore. I'm not proud.

@Mobius: You get a free sandwich with the purchase of a medium drink. They are saving you the cost of the drink (though you may still want to buy one).

Even if you have a great experience at a fast food restaurant, do you really feel like filling out a survey? If you're a manager and you need this, how else would you motivate customers than with free food?

I would love to fill one out and say "Great experience! In fact, I got a free burger just for saying so! A+!"

Where is this outlet? I'm hankering for a Whopper and can cruise the parking lot to find a receipt.

@RandomHookup:

This is on the back of EVERY Burger King receipt.

@Devidence: It depends on the store. I work at Home Depot and we have a folder full of print-outs of people's comments and ratings in the break room for everyone to read, and we also get awards (which come with extra $$$ in your paycheck) if our names are mentioned positively in it.

I don't think they directly respond to poor comments, but they generally address the problem in the store.

As a former store manager, BK Corporate looks at this survey VERY heavily. They send out the results at the end of every month. Basically, if you aren't putting up the numbers, your district manager will be paying you a not so friendly visit.

That being said, the stores I ran never had issues with poor survey scores. It was tough to get people to take the survey...even if you informed them they got something free. The only people that regularly utilized them were the regulars, who always scored us high. My stores averaged a 4.35 out of 5 which was usually the top score in my district.

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble but the free whopper is common practice. In fact, flip over your BK receipt and it will say to call and you get a free whopper and all you have to do is put the code on the receipt.

Free entree at Panda Experss for doing the same thing.

I am actually pretty surprised that everyone is taking this very lightly. I would have thought since this is .....shall we say.....fudging the numbers, bribery, and cover ups, that everyone would be a bit tougher.

Sellers on eBay do this all the time. In fact, this manager may have been inspired by this.

Retail managers are often judged on unscientific data. It's not fair, but it's hard to evaluate someone who has a subjective job.

Off topic for this post, but anyone else notice that you can't comment on the Consumer Reports post before this? Coincidence?

I took one of these the other day, although there was no order that I give all 5s. I gave mostly 3s and 4s, I think. I don't know where the receipt with my code went, either. I can't tell if that one had the same deal here: free sandwich only with purchase of fries and a drink. Which is still pretty good, I guess.

Almost as bad as Home Depot having their cashiers stick a "Please fill the survey" into every bag and handing them to you as well. And how about those eBay reviews? You ever read the letters sellers send along w/what you order?

@Wombatish: Actually I believe at Gamestop managers can lose their jobs for not getting enough people to take the survey.

@youbastid: No, there are some articles/posts that are for info only. Many of the "comment code" posts are the same way.

@takes_so_little: The last several companies I have worked for abide by the almighty customer survey. It seems they believe it's the only reasonable measure they have to measure how good their customer service is, when in fact they are deeply flawed and easily corruptible.

@basilray: I realize that. I'm asking where I can find this one that doesn't make me BUY a soda to get the free sandwich. That's what the hook is on this store's offer.

@LegoMan322: Fast food only gets fast consideration...It took 5 minutes to eat the meal...do you really want to spend 10 minutes talking about it?

@The_Red_Monkey: You do have to make a purchase of soda to get the free burger.

Once I brought one of the survey code receipts in, and a manager was working the register. He asked if I had rated the restaurant favorably, and when I said I had, he upped my fries and drink (you need to purchase fries and drink for the free sandwich) to larger sizes for no extra cost.

@josephbloseph: wow. i wonder what he'd have done if you said no! spit in your burger?

Burger King gives receipts? I need to look at the takeout bag more carefully when I buy my dollar-menu lunch on the run.

I was a manager for Wachovia for a couple years - they would put a ton of emphasis on random survey calls to customers that had visited your branch each week - you got graded 1 to 7 on a bunch of things, and anything below a perfect 7 was considered unacceptable - all it took was a single customer who was pissed at the bank for some reason, or was annoyed at being called at home, or had had a marginally poor experience at the branch for something that had nothing to do with customer service, and your branch was screwed. Employees spent half their time reciting these canned phrases that would show up on the survey instead of trying to actually provide legit, good service. I don't blame this BK at all.

@dragonfire81: They're still not supposed to have employees take the survey.

And we had several stores in our district reporting 0-10 surveys, the lowest brackets. I've severed all ties with the company, but I haven't heard of any mass firings.

@RandomHookup: Here (Texas) you have to buy fries and a drink.

@nursetim: The sad thing is that I seriously doubt that they're confirming people rated them all 5s.

@Wombatish: Last I checked there was no real prize for taking the survey, just an entry into a draw to win a PS3 or a Wii. I don't think that motivates a lot of people to take the survey.

@Wombatish: It should raise lots of flags. It is Burger King, afterall.

BK stores trying to fudge numbers isn't that uncommon. The Thomaston, Ga store would do this little thing with the drive through - if it was going to be over about 60 seconds serving time, they'd ask you to pull forward a bit, to the end of the driveway. Didn't matter if anyone was behind you, you were off the pressure pad under the window, and so they got good service time from it. At times they've had 5-6 cars parked up like that, and as you can see via Google, its not really designed for it - [tinyurl.com] (streetview of the drivethrough)

@Wombatish: It's been a while...yep, you have to buy fries, too.

Call me "Bad Consumer" but I've occasionally just written random letter/number combinations on the back of the receipt without taking the survey and they still take it.

@Wombatish: there WERE mass firings a few months ago... not for lack of surveys taken but for this exact reason. there was a district manager and a number of store managers that lost their jobs for falsifying their customer experience results (by having employees take the survey among other things).

@scootinger: Your BK might suck, but the one here is the only half decent fast food place for miles.

@TomCoughlin: My wife works for US Bank - they have the same type of thing on a scale of 1-8. If you don't score an 8, the disctrict manager goes apeshit on the branch and ruins everybody's day.

@RandomHookup: I didn't even realize Burger King was still around. They all shut down like 5+ years ago. (Seattle area) I think I've seen one in the past few years in the boondocks a hundred miles out or so

@RandomHookup: Who cares? A soda is like $1.50.

I just like that they put spelled 5"s like that.

I was at a local Arbys a few weeks ago to buy one sandwich. They gave me 5 reciepts which would allow me to rate them 5 times. Each rating generated a free sandwich coupon.