Five Star Nothingness

I spend a lot of time teaching people about the importance of customer centricity.  I’ll talk about how we need some kind of yard stick to determine where we are so that, when we make changes, we can measure again to see whether the improvements made a difference.  I’ll mention in sessions “that’s why we all get so many emails asking us ‘How did we do?’, text messages asking us whether we could ‘press 5 if you would recommend us to a friend’, pop ups that materialise on our computer screen just as we complete a transaction on your laptop.

I receive all of these requests and, given what I care about, I diligently fill them out when the service has been fantastic but, thinking about it, I often fill them out positively even when the service outcome hasn’t been, because the person who I was talking was lovely. 🙈

I often DON’T fill them out when I have actually experienced problems because I know how such feedback scores can be used. I guess I’m conscious that maybe if I have been speaking to a human, that they’re working in a broken system, maybe something terrible has happened to them, maybe their boss is awful and that maybe their job or bonus is dependent on ‘success’ within that customer satisfaction rating.

Sometimes people are really desperate for that rating.  I remember in Manchester station once, after I bought some food and drink for the train ride home, being handed a slip of paper with a QR code and a “Please rate us on Google and if I’ve been helpful, quote Clarice”.  I did think “Jeez Clarice, it was just a chicken baguette and a Pepsi Max”, so as I sat on the train, scanned the QR code in the tiny piece of paper in my hand and told the world that Clarice really did scan those items excellently, the first seeds of ‘I’m not sure customer rating systems really work do they’ were planted.

I am regularly reminded of this encounter as Google checks in with me to tell me about how many views my reviews have got.  My most popular one is the one I left for a local balloon company who made a lovely balloon arch for my Mum’s 70^th birthday.  It’s had over 5000 views you know.

So I give out ratings and reviews but am not immune to receiving them myself.  There’s lots of ways that your lecturing and teaching is reviewed and assessed.  Whether it’s an Executive Education feedback sheet or a Module evaluation as part of Post Graduate Teaching Surveys.  Often they are really positive (thanks guys), but there’ll always be one or two comments that irk me and feel desperately unfair or unkind.  Such as a recent “I didn’t learn anything new”.  Pleased to meet you too mate.

(Let’s not even go near how there have been multiple studies which show how much harshly women are critiqued within teaching as compared to their male peers. Ahem.)

So yes, I guess it’s always in the back of my mind how horrible it is to be ‘rated’.

Nothing has felt as unjust however as when one Uber driver gave me a shocking rating one night, God knows why, but it dented my, otherwise perfect Uber rating significantly to where I now stand, 4.92, WHICH I HAVE NEVER SEEMINGLY BEEN ABLE TO RECOVER FROM. It never changes. It’s been 4.92 for over a year. That bloke must have given me a 1.  (Uber tells me ‘not to despair if my average isn’t 5.0.  Things that seem small to you can matter to your partner-driver (weird term) such as if I accidentally slammed a door’ for example).

I guess being rated as a customer works because now I am always super courteous, polite and always tip (except when they have really annoyed me) but yes, they always get 5 stars because I’m scared that they’ll 1 star me if I don’t.  I am now so paranoid about how I shut the door as I leave the taxi, I always take great care to not shut the metal seat belt into the metal inners of the car and cause that horrible KERUNK sound, that, thinking about it, must make me look a tad deranged (minus 1 star).

Hmm.  Is shutting a car door in an Uber the most care I practice in life? 🤔

Zoiks.

Anyway.  Something about all of this feels a bit wrong.

I am the customer.  I’m meant to be the ‘always right’ one. Since when did rating me and how well I use YOUR service become so acceptable?

Airbnb is the same.  I’m almost scared to stay in Airbnb’s now.  I took my daughter to one in West Wales and she kicked off about something as soon as we arrived, screaming the absolute house down.  It was meant to be a lovely mother and daughter trip, but yeah, it instantly started going wrong and as I sat there, pondering my life choices and wondering why and where our once lovely relationship has seemingly gone so wrong, I also feared for my Airbnb status.

I spent the rest of the stay making sure not to accidentally make any marks on their walls, drop any of their cups and not say anything that could be deemed a slight irritant to my daughter for fear of the owner living in that locked shed in the garden awarding me even more minus points.

Fun, tenterhook times.

I was prompted to muse on this topic by one of my musical faves, Laura Marling (see hexagon of Female Singersongwriter Joy) who is not only a wonderful singer songwriter, but also writes beautiful blogs.  She, like often me, chickened out of publicly saying what she really thought in a recent holiday experience – https://lauramarling.substack.com/p/on-leaving-london-leisure/  What was really interesting to me was that she has identified the homogeneity of experience that such rating systems seem to generate.

It’s impossible to think of an Airbnb experience where the owners hadn’t thought of everything.  Is there something a bit spooky about how perfectly that cutlery and utensil drawer has been arranged and how it covers every possible mini break requirement? *shivers*

Unlike my stay, Laura’s holiday home owners must have left their shed and turned up unannounced for cups of tea (the temptation to drink tea with a wonder such as Laura Marling must have been strong, so I somewhat sympathise with the owner’s predicament).

What solidified choosing this month’s blog topic for me was a recent Linked In post by Lou Barton who shared @minxgenie’s hilarious review of a Sainsbury’s large brown onion.

Methinks the reviews might hath gone too far.

Lou asks “how much of what we ask from customers is actually feeding into changing what we do?” an interesting question indeed, but I’d also suggest adding “and even if we do listen, how much of what customers are telling us is actually true?”

I am a major fan of ‘stepping into your customer’s shoes.  Service Design rather fancifully calls doing this going on a ‘customer safari’. It’s basically trying the service yourself, feeling your way through it, recognising points of annoyance and seeing the service you deliver through your customer’s perspective, as a customer yourself.  This is the closest you can get to a ‘true’, unfiltered experience I think. Plus it’s less about the human involved, and more about what the service itself is delivering.

I’m not suggesting that we should get rid of all ratings and customer questionnaires, but we do need to look at them with caution, particularly if the customer themselves is being rated as part of the exchange. Being rated at the same time as you offer your own feedback does tend to curb your tongue somewhat.

Plus, as we all know, some people can be overly kind … and some people can be overly mean.

And lets not go near those services where the agent tells you that if you don’t award them full marks they’ll lose money. Yes that has happened to me, and I’m sure you, more than once.

So immerse yourself in your own service experiences, with no hidden agenda other than to seek the real truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and then, I guess, make sure you act on what you discover.