Evaluating Service Staff

A young man walked into a coffee shop, and was promptly greeted by the cashier that was holding onto a small piece of paper that looked like a receipt. He happily took the patron’s order, smiled, brought the coffee quickly, and otherwise offered excellent service. After the transaction was completed, the cashier handed the customer the piece of paper from his hand.

The paper had a link to a survey about the quality of service, in exchange for $1 off of the next beverage. It doesn’t take a researcher to understand why the responses from that survey are useless. The survey paper was already in the cashier’s hand.

They knew they were going to be evaluated in advance of handing over the paper. The service the person received is unlikely to be genuine, or at the very least is less likely to be genuine, because there is no way for the patron to know what the cashier was really like.

Researchers need to be always on the lookout for better ways to evaluate things like customer service. The person handing the survey to the customer simply cannot be aware that they’re being evaluated, because the more they know the more likely the service they provide isn’t what they do normally. Now, perhaps this is what you prefer as a business.

Indeed, a customer service staff that expects a survey all day every day is likely to be on the top of their game for longer. But at the same time, it’s best to make sure that you have some way to evaluate the customer satisfaction without the service staff influencing the result. Consider the following ideas: Have a Better Way of Getting Email Addresses – You need a way to contact the customer about a survey.

Find a way to get their email address in advance of the survey, and you’ll be able to evaluate the staff member without their knowledge. Call – If you have a store card, you can also consider calling the individual immediately after they complete a transaction. As soon as you receive data that the transaction is complete, call them and see what their response is.

Provide a Survey on Every Receipt – Consider providing a customer satisfaction survey on every receipt, rather than a random sample. There are indications that those that complete these surveys are not likely to be a random sample anyway (due to incredibly low response rates), so providing a survey link to every single customer may ensure that the service staff doesn’t single out a specific customer for excellent service. Many people have experienced a scenario where a cashier seemed disinterested in their work only to perk up when they saw the long receipt with the survey link on it pop out of the machine.

You want to try to avoid having someone that knows they’re being evaluated alter the results – or worse, not even give the survey because they know they’re going to receive a negative response. Try to consider alternate methods of evaluating staff, and your data will be more accurate and better for drawing conclusions.