Entering Contests via Receipt Survey
How many times have you shopped at a store or eaten at a restaurant and been invited to take a customer service survey.
Usually these survey opportunities are presented by the clerk or waiter who points out a web site at the bottom of your receipt.
I have never paid attention to these in the past and often find them to be a nuisance. Sure, Target claims to give away $5000 gift cards. But who really takes the time to fill out these surveys and enter these contests?
It must have been something in the leather smell when I exited Wilson Leather the other day, because I decided to offer my feedback and enter their contest.
Only I didn’t stop there.
I went through my credit card receipts for the past few weeks looking for opportunities to either enter a contest or receive some sort of future discount for filling out a survey.
It took me approximately 2-4 minutes to fill out each one. Here is the list of all the businesses I filled out a survey for and the reward for doing so:
Wilson Leather – $500 gift card contest
Chili’s – $1000 given away daily
Famous Footwear – $10 off next purchase of $50
Best Buy – $5000 shopping spree
Target – $5000 gift card
Build-a-Bear – $1000 cash prize
King Sooper -$100 gift card
Party City – $100 shopping spree
GameStop – $500 gift card
Olive Garden – $1000 grand prize or $50 runner-up prize
Biaggi’s – Free pizza or stromboli on next visit
Old Navy – 10% off my next purchase
After spending about 45-50 minutes of my life completing these surveys, I figured out a few things.
1) The answers submitted are not accurate. I would guess most people entering data click without reading the answers. Sometimes I got so tired of it that I was randomly clicking to rate different features, etc.
2) The odds of actually winning something are extremely small. Believe me. If I win anything I will report it on this blog.
3) I will never do this again. I now have greater dislike for online surveys than ever before.
Then again… if others feel as I do I suppose the chances of actually winning are pretty good.
Bottom line is this. I don’t believe these kinds of surveys are a good way for businesses to receive accurate feedback from their customers.
I definitely agree. When you ask people to fill up a survey form you’re asking them to give you the best possible, well-thought, educated answer. Instead you should just track / observe their natural responses.
I agree that the information collected is not very accurate.
I tried to complain about the service at a Pizza Hut and they told me to fill out the survey. Of course I never received any feedback/apology about my undercooked pizzas…
I did one for Wallgreens not the long ago and the questions weren’t even relevant to my experience at the store, yet they still forced me to answer them. I went through a pharmacy drive through and didn’t enter the store, but it wouldn’t let me skip the questions about the cleanliness of the store etc.
A flawed survey system indeed.
I did one of these about two weeks ago after my wife, daughter and I ate at Applebee’s. I was compelled to do so because the waiter was atypically exceptional. I wanted to give him some praise for making our dining experience a pleasant one. After reading the other comments in this thread, I would have to agree that the survey was poor in the information it was trying to extract and did not allow for an accurate relay of information. Design intent? Not so sure. Sadly, the opportunity to reward good service was wasted. The time spent to give a compliment was also wasted. Not sure I will do one of these as well. Curiously, I wonder what kind of response rate they get in terms of how many people actually participate in these surveys. I hope you win Joel.
U don’t like surveys but you have an ad at the upper-right about suveys?
Well,its a shame that they dont have it here in South Africa becoz some places i have been i would like to share my mind of what i think of their service. People should complete the survey because this will help them to improve their service they are providing you.
A survey is really only as good as the questions it asks and the motivation behind the person doing the survey. I have surveyed my mailing lists and received amazing feedback on what types of trainings they were missing. Actually I designed an entire product based on their survey responses.
It was and still is a hot seller for me.
When I say motivation that is also a key factor. I didn’t give my list anything at all, but the opportunity to tell me what kinds of things they needed to know to help improve their businesses online. It was a winning situation for them.
Now if I had given them a free gift or something for filling out the survey I would have probably received watered down responses that weren’t well thought out. That is the problem with most of these surveys that businesses do. You rush through them just to get entered for the question and don’t care about the quality you are putting into the responses.
So my point in all of this is that surveys are highly effective and can help your business. You just have to give your customers and subscribers the right motivation to fill it out.
Great discussion! I am researching better ways for company’s, particularly retail stores, to conduct meaningful surveys. Eventually, I will also research better ways for restaurants to conduct meaningful surveys. When I say meaningful I mean substantive questions answered by well motivated customers by which those results can be used in a productive way for a retail store/restaurant to improve/enhance their quality and quantity.
Well I think that if one has a particular reason to call the managers atention one has to make it known on the spot. Call the manager and discuss the matter, it has worked for me many times.
Also, I did a survey for Macy’s one evening and I suggested the best time to contact me was before 9:00 AM and before then I received a call from a manager from The Galleria in Houston and I was able to have a good long talk with him. I immediately noticed the change in their salespersons the following visit to the store.
We were at Applebee’s we had the most horrible experience our dinner was terrible your ouinoa, was awful we have a dinner home and I’ve never tasted that bad thank you very much for the chicken the luncheon was great but I will not be back I’m seriously upset and I’m telling everybody thank you