Having been off over the holidays, I spent some time taking vehicles to get serviced.  One of these was at a new car dealer.  While I don’t often take cars to the dealer for repair or maintenance, I did this time.

While the appointment was successful, as I left, the service consultant asked me to mark “tens” on the customer satisfaction survey.  Then when I arrived home, I got an e-mail from the service department, asking for the same thing.  This is not the first time, I have been asked to “bias” the results of a customer satisfaction survey – The same dealer asked the same thing when I purchased the car – related to the sales experience survey.

Over the last few years, many organizations have taken to trying to agressively measure customer satisfaction through surveys like this.  Time and time again, I have been asked to “bias” the results. 

As I understand it, the game is played by the local dealer or outlet against the corporate offices, or by the individual staff member against the local management or both.  The problem is that it biases the data. 

I assume that there is something at stake.  A bonus, retaining one’s job, etc – something that causes the individual to bias the results of the survey.  Perhaps just a management “beating” that the staff member is trying to avoid.

The key thing here is that the evaluator of the survey thinks the results mean one thing, and because of this induced bias, they mean something else.  So as the CUSTOMER, I am forced to realize that because of this, the organization, as a whole, does not want me to tell them how to improve customer service, they want to tell me how great their customer service already is, by soliciting me to tell them that it is already superlative.

If the corporate office actually wanted to improve customer service, they would construct anti-bias mechanisms into their survey.  If the local management wanted to improve customer service, they would discipline employees who were caught biasing the survey.

The organization does not want to hear me out.  They merely want to shut up those who are measuring customer satisfaction.  They have turned an opportunity to get honest feedback from a real customer into….

Wasting the customer’s time.

This is really the point.  The thing is, it is not the biasers fault.  The individual that are trying to game the survey results are doing what they are INCENTED to do. 

The incentives that cause the individuals to bias the results are a form of weaponized metrics.  Weaponized metrics are a corporate behavior that says I am going to measure something and then I am going to use it as a stick to beat people with.  When an organization weaponizes its measurements output, it basically tells it’s staff – you are the problem. 

What happens when your management decides that the staff is the problem?  They get games.  They get staff trying to beat the system.

What can management do instead?