Online Surveys

They can make a monkey out of you

The latest business trend in gathering the feedback from events, team training, conferences,or any interaction with coworkers, clients or volunteers is to jump on a survey website, and create a set of questions to send to everyone that had interaction with your business at a specific event.

Where I work every interaction we have with people is surveyed, and then as employees or managers, our performance measures are tied to these anonymous opinions. Thus, if someone writes a negative comment, it affects our promotion and pay raise. 

Now that I have sent several surveys out to our clients and conference and training meeting attendees, I am beginning to be disillusioned about my future with my employer. The events have been within budget, on time, with very few mishaps or problems. At the event everyone that attended verbally said how they had a great time and loved the interaction, the speaker and the workshops.

I naively sent the survey out to everyone, waiting to see their comments in written form. No such luck. I have never seen such negative and hateful words in a review since the movie critics tore apart a movie (any movie after Field of Dreams) starring Kevin Costner. 

It wasn't the event that they hated, it was me. They didn't like my clothes, my voice, my cheerful attitude; heck even my name (Happy) was offensive. They hated filling out a survey, they hated their employer, the CEO of the company (who they have never met, nor at the training), the restrooms of the conference center, the food, the free gifts, it goes on and on.

I am amazed at the lack of courtesy, respect and logic when people have complete anonymity in filling out an online survey. They use it as a tool to be vindictive and cruel and mean, and I think it is due to the complete freedom to lash out without consequence.

In one survey, I did not provide the opportunity for people to respond in a negative manner without responsibility. If they did not like a training and chose the option stating such, they also had to agree to one-on-one training as a follow-up. They were given the option to disagree or disapprove of the event, they just had to be accountable for their actions.

It was amazing how the negative comments disappeared in the new survey. Well I did have one person complain that they wanted more options available, specifically the freedom to be negative without accountability.

From now on, all of my surveys will have accountability factored in; I don’t believe complete anonymity allows for an unbiased survey. I feel that we have lost social graces by transmitting most of our communication electronically. The effects, (either negative or positive) of written opinions are removed when relying solely on electronic feedback. As such I think people lash out aimlessly because they have lost the introspect of their actions while communicating online.

Breakout the old fill-in-the-blank surveys once in a while, better yet, get verbal feedback by interviewing people face to face or by phone. That gives the attendee time to think about how their feedback will come across to the interviewer, and it gives real-time opinions. 

Sometimes, I think it is even better to just call a training what it is and not bother about feedback. If attendees are required to attend, the topic will still be the same mandated information and the food menu isn't going to change from the usual box lunch extravaganza, then feedback is pretty much worthless.

Last word, think before you write, or speak. We are still humans with feelings, don’t use online interaction as a way to belittle others, use it to be helpful.