The other morning, whilst queueing for my coffee at my local Caffe Nero, (other coffee companies are available {but they’re not as good}), I found myself listening to the conversation going on behind the counter between the team members serving us. “Now remember, 2 feedbacks each of you per shift please!”. This was swiftly followed by the Barista turning to me with my coffee in hand and her face broke into a broad smile and she then picked up one of the feedback cards and gave it to me asking me to go online and fill in the (short) survey to give her some personal feedback.
Nothing wrong with that you might think. But for me, it felt a bit odd. You see, I would expect that kind of conversation to have taken place behind the scenes in a team briefing before everyone came on the shop floor. Reason being, the whole request felt artificial to me. It’s a bit like when a shop knows there’s a mystery shopper coming, or a school knows when an Ofsted inspection is due. How can you possibly expect people to behave as they normally do, which would be more indicative of the usual experience they’re delivering?
I know at work that we send out hundreds of thousands of requests for feedback every month to our customers. We tend to do that right after they call us, to solicit views on the agent’s behaviour, knowledge and ability to handle the enquiry; or we send email survey requests a day or two later, which help us understand what people feel about the experience once the dust settles.
What do you think works best? How do you think retail outlets can best get objective feedback about their experience? Who do you look up to in this space for best practice?
