My first job was bussing tables. Other menial jobs through age 18 included cooking jobs, valet parking, construction, etc. Altogether a pretty good dose of crummy jobs, most of which did not include tips or really any type of intellectual gratification. I’m not bitter about it. Important lessons, character building, blah blah blah.
But today I’m tired of EVERY place I go having a tip jar. Somebody pours you a coffee into a cup … there is a tip jar. They have tip jars even at the fast food restaurants here in San Francisco. At a CAR RENTAL place one time I saw a tip jar. Where does it end?
Where I’m going with this – back to the tech industry – is that I’m similarly tired of companies that I buy a product or service from reaching back to me to ask me for something after the purchase.
AT&T, after installing our business’ internet connection and phone lines at our new offices, calls up with a “customer service satisfaction” survey. Would it ever occur to them that regardless of a business’ satisfaction with their service, a survey call during business hours is unwelcome?
Asking for feedback, kudos or references is the white collar tip jar that’s gone too far. It’s after almost every B2B transaction these days. If a contractor provides any sort of service to you and does an even mediocre job, it is almost guaranteed that they are going to ask to list you as a client on their site, or for a quote, or to give them feedback on how to do a better job.
Posted by John Assalian
August 16, 2010 at 12:34 pm
yesterday I was in a grocery store in San Francisco (Glen Park neighborhood). There was a tip jar at the counter that said “Tips Are Sexy”. Apparently they serve coffee and sandwiches as well – so hence the tip jar – but i thought this was a bit much for a grocery store.
I agree with you thought, the customer service request survey has been overdone!
Posted by Craig Oda
August 25, 2010 at 10:39 am
I agree with the main point that customer feedback in the tech industry is valuable and can be analogous to a tip in a service industry such as a restaurant. I’m trying to figure out how much this customer feedback is worth to businesses. If they’re unable to get the feedback for free from paying customers, maybe they’re willing to pay some amount of money to get the feedback from other sources?
Basically, if there’s a problem with paying customers giving free feedback, maybe there’s a solution out there?
In my business, I’m selling a combination of product promotion and customer feedback. These are packaged up as social media campaigns. However, I’m having some problems assigning dollar amounts to the customer feedback portion of the value stack. Well, I think we’ll become more accurate at valuing the feedback as we continue with our business.