I do not know about you, but I have had it up to my gazoo when it comes to surveys. For example, we had some furniture delivered this morning around 8:30 am. They brought in a big box (seems like all furniture today has to be assembled.) I can easily recall when furniture came in an immediate useable form. In any case, they rolled the box to an appropriate room and left it there. It doesn’t look too bad as the box is not beat up all that much. Actually for a few more bucks a good fellow will come by and put the furniture together so we can use it. Technically, it can be put together in no more than twenty minutes. That’s assuming you are technical, which I am not. It also assumes that you have the necessary tools, which I don’t since we downsize.
In any case about fifteen minutes after the delivery guys had left, we received an email from the seller wanting to know what we had thought of their delivery system and the gentlemen who did the delivery. Well, as far as we can tell, they didn’t break anything, and as I indicated the box looks well situated in the middle of our screened in porch. As to the delivery guys themselves, I wouldn’t recognize them again since they were in and out faster than bank robbers in a bad western. Not that they were bad. As far as I could tell, they were fine upstanding individuals, but I was not around them long enough to expound on any particular qualifications they might have.
If you buy anything on the web, the provider is certain to follow up with an almost immediate request as to how you were treated and was the transaction mode one which drove you to higher levels of sensory delight. The worst ones are if you happen to talk to someone in the process of the order. The provider will then want to know if the employee was one with whom you would want your eligible son or daughter to develop a friendship. If you hedge your answers appropriately, you are certain to be offered free shipping on your next order over $100. On other occasions, it might be a 10% discount on any order. These rewards are there for the taking, if you are willing to recognize service that can’t be beat – and you don’t expect your furniture or whatever to be in a useable mode immediately.
I hate to mention that there is one company that is one of the worst in this area. The Blonde in the house has made our address easily findable because of the number of times we have purchased from them since our last move. However, the fact is that very very shortly after their product arrives, we receive a request to help out other customers by responding to their survey (which won’t take long!). That is not an easy task. Last Christmas is a prime example of that. The good wife does not believe in having presents directly sent to a grandchild for example. She wants to wrap them herself. This means that I am supposed to respond to questions about a gift that many times I am not ever certain what it is. We are sent Christmas lists from our two youngest grandkids that have items that we have no idea what they are. The only thing we are certain of is that they are something they would like to have. This means that during the jolly season, we can’t help out other customers who may well be our friends and neighbors.
Makes me sad during what should be a happy season!
Barry Evans is a columnist for Villages-News.com.
