Seems about right, on a scale of 1 to 100.

I once went to that K-Mart. The Cashier was so busy on the phone it took literally 5-8 minutes to scan 2 items and take my card. I then had to remind her to give me a bag.

This reminds me of whenever I buy a car. The Nissan salesperson reminds me that I will receive a survey in the mail, and that I'm supposed to return that survey with all 5's (the best possible mark), or else their dealership will be dinged or knocked down some points or whatever.

I don't generally return surveys anyway, and I certainly don't when someone tells me what my answers should be anyway.

@zacox: My Nissan had two years of free service after purchase, so every time I went to the dealer in that time he would tell me a survey is coming, and asked that I rate everything "excellent", and if I thought I couldn't do it to let him know how he could help. I quasi-jokingly suggested throwing in a free inspection/emissions when mine was due, and surprisingly enough he did it when I brought in my car a couple months later for service.

So while I didn't like being told to mark him "excellent", I figured he earned it.

I have had plenty of cashiers at Walmart and Target say that sort of thing too, Kmart was just dumb enough to put it in writing and hang a sign up. Oh and you notice the bad formatting that makes it looks like someone typed that out in notepad or something? Well that is probably because we didn't have access to any word processor to make a decent looking sign back when I worked at Kmart a few years ago.

An Old Navy store stapled a piece of paper to my receipt with a similar suggestion - something like "rate us a 10 and get 10% off". Of course you get 10% off for filling out the survey no matter what, so I filled out the survey honestly, with perhaps a slight negative influence from the suggestion.

@zacox: "I certainly don't when someone tells me what my answers should be anyway."

The correct response is to return the survey with the worst possible marks in those situations.

I wonder how long till k-mart corporate notices and the store's GM gets a "come-to-jesus" meeting with management?

yesterday i went to CVS for a prescription. when i checked out, the cashier looked at my receipt and stated that I had been selected to participate in a survey. yeah, yeah, yeah, i know - this happens all the time. but she then showed me a mini candy bar and said, "you get a free Take5 candy bar so that will remind you to give us all 5's on the survey!" i thought it was pretty smart but i still didn't do the survey...

Well, I live in California, but I took their survey anyway. I just plugged in a fake receipt number (turns out it codes as a pharmacy receipt), and gave them all ones. If they want to work the system, I can help.

@zacox: The only time I do those surveys is when they have a drawing associated with them. I am actually more likely to go give an honest response (not top marks) when someone encourages me to give good marks.

@calchip: It was probably the GM that told someone to make that sign since corporate sets so much stock in those customer surveys.

I just politely say, "No."

Or I give them the excuse that I'm Canadian and in my country its against the law to do surveys. (I know I'm lying to them, but hey its worked and it gets me out of it if NO doesn't work.)

The Home Depots around me stick a flyer and/or hand you one telling you the almost exact same thing, except they want you to rate them, not K-Mart.

@larrymac: Why negative? There's nothing wrong with being compensated for filling out a survey. It's the answer requirements that are the problem.

Don't laugh - apparently the cashiers are somehow evaluated based on feedback from these stupid things. A few weeks ago, they suddenly became the nicest, most helpful people I've ever seen after years of going through the motions. Every one begs you to take the stupid survey - is their pay tied to it or something?

I've got survey overload and have made it a personal policy to not take any surveys. I think surveys are out of control.

I worked at Sears right when the merger first started, and a 9 on any part of a survey meant we failed. It had to be all 10s or it was a failure - I guess they've gotten more lenient?

I thought it was a waste of time anyway, why am I going to care that I failed a survey because a customer gave a 4 for the item being in stock because the stockboy was too busy texting to bring out merchandise or a 3 on courteous associates because they heard the jackoffs in tools talking about their VD?

they must want it to match the font.

@zacox:

Yeah, when I sold Mercedes the sales manager even gave a script of what we were supposed to say to customers about the satisfaction survey. I never once even mentioned the survey to my customers. How tacky.

@zacox: VW did the same to me in 2002. When I got the call (phone survey) I gave them a 3/5 overall. When I asked why I said "because I was pressured to give all 5's and I found that irritating".

@klwillis45: The answer requirements was what negatively influenced my responses. e.g. If the question wanted me to rate my overall shopping experience, I'd not give them a 10 because their attempt to influence my survey answers didn't sit well with me.

@elangomatt: Believe it or not, there are some good, reputable salespeople out there who try very hard and pride themselves on good customer service, and they appreciate the small bonus they may get for a perfect survey. I've seen surveys come back with 8's or 9's, from people I bent over backwards for. They'd come in and say "Oh, I thought no one would believe me if I put all 10's." Doesn't matter if they believe you or not. Gotta be a ten, or no bonus.

Chances are that if you buy a new car today, and know anything about buying a car, your salesman is getting a very small commission. If he's quality, help him out with a good survey. If he's not, rate it poorly. Even salesmen need to eat.

@Trencher93: What's interesting to me is that the only people who get surveys are the ones who buy something. These places maybe ought to have some concern about the people who are walking out without buying something - because they couldn't find it, because nobody offered to help, because the cashier was rude . . .

When I did my time at Best Buy, management said they only cared about the "top and bottom box" scores - i.e. the 1's and 5's. As a customer, I'm almost never exTREEEMly satisfied (or dissatisfied for that matter).

I used to have a part time gig at a national bookseller. Let's call them 'Birders'. These surveys would frequently print out. We were directed from our managers to explain the survey, including the following: "IF you think we did a good job today, give us a 5. 5 is the best." We were also told to write the number 5 on that part of the receipt. We also put our first name on the receipt so that the customer would (hopefully) compliment us by name, thus giving us brownie points and a chance at a drawing for a bonus $20 or so.

I think the goal was to prime the people into thinking service was good. I don't recall anyone ever saying "Give us a 5" outright, but rather saying "IF you think it was good, THEN give us a 5". I thought it was an honest and simple explanation.

@MyPetFly: By giving them 1s across the board, it's almost certain they'll have to look at it as someone stuffing receipts or as outlying values in the event that they actually do use the data.

I went to the website and took the survey. They didn't get any 9s or 10s.

@zacox: Two ways I would give all 5's.
1) Do something for me back. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.
2) Be quiet, do an excellent job, and let me fill it out myself.

@zacox:
When I purchased my tires, they put a different brand on them than what I purchased, and I didn't realize it until I got back to my office. It was an upgrade, but I was really ticked off that they didn't tell me before just picking another brand for me.

Anyway, I dinged them on the survey, and the manager called me all pissed off because I should've been happy for the free upgrade.

Needless to say, I'll not buy tires from them again - at least not that location.

@zacox:

I've had similar experiences when I bought my Ranger and Escape. The dealer made a point to politely ask me to give them good marks and if I felt they didn't deserve them to tell them and they would correct any issues.

I never had an issue helping those guys out as long a they treated me fairly and took care of issues when or if they arose.

My mother is the only person that I know that still shops there. I encourage that because it's not Walmart.

@Kogenta:

I made sure to include the link to this article, so hopefully they'll follow it and see what's going on.

You know, if you give a rating from 1-10, and anything but a 10 is deemed a "failure", then just make the stupid thing True/False. If '9' and '1' are statistically the same, they are redundant, and all the numbers in between.

Circle 1 - I was given good service: T F

I must live in some far-away perfect land of happy puppies and rainbows. I've been given the survey spiel many times by various retailers and not once has it been suggested how I should respond. Not even once.

Or maybe it's my imposing demeanor that keeps the terrified cashiers from suggesting it. Though my wife says I just look like a big teddy bear to her.

Did the same thing when i worked at sears but it said all 10s and we were told to tell them all 10s or we'd fail. It would be nice if they used the surveys to better themselves.

Home Depot has been doing the samething with the cashiers highlighting the website.

It's basically begging for a high score so the store and it's management can get a star pasted on their forehead.

The problem is when you beg for and get a high score the actual problems the surveys are trying to address never get fixed.

I almost never rate anything the top score. The rep or company would have to do something over the top to be rated perfect. I didn't know that anything but "10" was considered a failure. Sure the service was fine but I wasn't extremely pleased. So I usually rate at 8 or 9 if I'm happy.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

The Kmart feedback website that bunches of nimrods seemingly cannot find and end up at complaintsboard.com entering all types of personal information about the survey:

[www.complaintsboard.com]

See even the last page 108 for poor idiots entering their home addresses and phone numbers!!!!

And a whole pile at the INDIAN complaints board!

[www.consumercomplaints.in]

Something is seriously messed up with these people who cannot Google the website and get misdirected or are all using AOL or something and get mis-directed.

I am taking an online course right now and we are only 5 weeks into a 16 week course. The instructor emailed everyone and said that is we fill out the survey by Monday we will get 5 points added to our last lab assignment. Basically the class is only 1/3 complete and we are supposed to evaluate the course and the instructor. Also who would put anything negative on a course evaluation when you still have 2/3 of the class left to go? They say the instructor can't see the surveys until after the final grades are released but I am not going to take that chance.

A Toyota dealer actually told me to bring in the survey so we could 'fill it out together'. In exchange - he would fill my gas tank.

@zacox: Wow I thought it was only Lexus that bombarded people with surveys. They request a lengthy survey when you purchase, then shorter ones each time you get it serviced, even for just an oil change. Not just a paper survey, but a telephone call as well. I asked them to stop bugging me but they didn't, so I stopped going to the dealer.

These kinds of customer service surveys are a joke. First of all, people only tend to respond if they had either a great or terrible experience. Second if you tie pay/bonuses to this, people will (naturally) try to game the system.

Hospitals do this too, and I am constantly told to tell 'customers' that we 'strive for 5' or some similar bullshit. My response of course is that I'm not a used car salesman and I don't have customers, I have patients. And while people may suggest that thinking of patients as 'customers' is a good thing, I think its ludicrous. Largely because if this was about money I wouldn't put up with nearly as much shit I do. Oh wait, you're 19, drunk as shit, swearing, just spit in your nurses face, and just told me that I had 'better watch my step' because your dad is State Assemblyman Bumfuckweasel. Gee, Mr Customer - there's the door you can crawl out in the underwear, fraternity tee shirt, and one sock that you showed up in. Don't let the door hit you on your ass on the way out. Kthxbai!

@Scrutinizer: Ha! I LOL'd. That was great.

@larrymac: I agree that there should be a way to survey the non-buyers, but how do you really quantify that? Someone is upset about not being able to find some to help them, and then is the door greeter going to block their way out and say "But wait, take this survey so we can find out why you didn't buy anything." Of course, then the police would probably be called for illegal detainment by the walmart greeters again.

@SacraBos: I agree, I wish Ben Affleck and Matt Damon would go into the conference room of every meeting that decides this asinine "9 is failure" policy and pull their routine from Dogma on them.

@misslisa: At my job we are badgered constantly to get customers to fill out the surveys. Apparently if not enough get filled out, corporate doesn't think we are doing our job well (?).

I have also been pressured by a manager to tell customers they can win a prize by giving us good marks. I flatly refused to do this. (In reality, just taking the survey gives you a chance to win).

@elangomatt: Put a sign up in the store that says "tell us about your visit today!" and include a phone number/website whatever.

Have the first question be: Did you purchase anything today?

If the answer is no, the next questions are:

1) Were you asked if you needed assistance?
2) Was the item you were looking for unavailable or sold out?
3) How would you rate the general layout of the store
4) Would you return to this store?

Simple.

Wait, is that 1 Penn Plaza KMart the store with a door at Penn Station, in NYC? One of the worst KMarts I've ever been to? (Although actually, it's only the 3rd or 4th worst.)

HA.

@zacox: I was asked to do the same by an employee of Applebees. I dinged the employee and under comments, I wrote about being pressured to give 5 stars for a 2 star service. I received a letter from the DM with a letter apologizing for the solicitation and a coupon for a free dinner for 2.

@sir_pantsalot: Generally the midterm reviews are so that profs can address concerns that students have before the class is over. And at least where I am, it's all anonymous (other than saying who did or did not fill it out)