If you contact the customer support of your utility company, phone carrier, bank, or other service provider you’ll likely be flooded with requests to rate the experience and provide feedback. Likewise, corporate websites and email communications often solicit feedback via embedded buttons or links to online forms.

What’s with this corporate obsession with customer feedback?

Are these huge piles of feedback actually analyzed and acted upon? Is customer feedback some sort of corporate cargo cult? Or maybe clever marketing by vendors of feedback tools and services?

The impression is the feedback is just discarded or ignored.

  • raubarno@lemmy.mlEnglish
    6·
    2 years ago

    This practice comes from Japan. In 1980s, certain companies, like Toyota, understood the importance of product and process quality. And one of the practices to ensure that everyone is ‘on the same ground’, and that the product under development would surely satisfy the consumer’s needs, was close communication between the stakeholders and receiving the feedback.

    Long story short, it was part of their broader ‘Quality first’ strategy. However, it is only viable if the organisation is properly managed, and all Quality management things are put into practice (the hardest part).

    This is just my understanding from a book I read during my free time. My knowledge may be incorrect.

  • platypuspup@mander.xyzEnglish
    6·
    2 years ago

    In my opinion, it is another way to get value out of the user instead of giving value.

    Managers have to do very little work in terms of understanding the skills of their employees if we do it for them.

    A huge step I found in terms of my mental health was to refuse to give reviews anymore, in any form. I am now able to enjoy my experiences a lot more without looking for reasons to critique them.

  • pathief@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    Who wouldn’t want a ton of feedback about the service provided?

    I wish my costumers provided me with all their genuine feedback, all the things they hate about our app and why.

  • phareous@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    2 years ago

    I think in almost all cases it is just used to reward (or more likely) punish employees through pay or continued employment. I don’t think they actually care to improve their products, processes, etc.

    TLDR if you don’t give all 10s the employee gets in trouble and eventually fired, even for things not in their control

  • Starb3an@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    At the company I work for we actually make and sell products on Amazon. We ask for reviews for 2 reasons: 1. Star rating = sales. Pretty simple. 2. We compile customer complaints and try to resolve them. Our sales team goes through all of the negative reviews and tells the production team, fix this, and we actually fix it (if possible).

    Our company is only about 100-120 people. The CEO/owner actually does work and is involved instead of just watching and looking at numbers so it’s definitely not your typical corporation.