I’ve just completed a survey handed to me at Euston station the other day. It’s one of those standard multiple choice jobbies. Don’t ask me why I did it I generally dislike these things intensely.
It’s a 4 page effort and I was bored after page 1. The first question on page 2 is one of those that leads to subsequent routes through the survey. If you answer that yes, you’ve had an adverse experience in the last few months, you have 2 whole pages of further questions to answer. If you answer no, you skip to the last page.
Needless to say, this creates a powerful incentive to answer one way, rather than another… the more speedily to qualify for entry in the prize draw and get back to real life.
I wonder if the marketing folks spent any time at all thinking about the message these laboured, tedious forms give their customers? Do they perhaps kid themselve that we somehow interpret them as evidence of care?
