Mind Your Manners, Companies Are Rating You
Here’s a word to the wise: If your or your company prefaces surveys with statements like “anything less than a 5 is not satisfactory” then you aren’t interested in honest feedback, and you are wasting your money on surveys. The only purpose the survey is serving is to get some executives an automatic bonus forconsistently making their (fake) survey numbers. If your company has workers rate customers then eventually you will be out of business.
Customer reviews are a new form of credit report, one that measures manners instead of finances. Although such ratings have been tried before — eBay was a pioneer — the practice has taken off with the rise of the so-called on-demand economy.
Strangers may be eager to drive you places or rent you their house for the weekend, but they require some level of confidence. So companies from Airbnb to the new taxi services use reviews to weed out those they do not wish to serve.
In response, some consumers are becoming more polite and prompt. But the knowledge that they may be rated is also encouraging people to submit more upbeat reviews themselves, even if the experience was less than stellar. When services choose whom to serve, no one wants to be labeled difficult.
“It’s a Barney world,” said Michael Fertik, the chief executive of Reputation.com, referring to the purple dinosaur who sings, “With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you/ Won’t you say you love me too.”