Some people change their dating preferences on the day of the date, right?
When the staff say, “You can cancel the date if you’d like, but we’d really appreciate it if you could meet them just once as a club,” well… of course you end up going.
★3 is perfectly fine. If there were neither positives nor negatives, that’s logically correct. However, when you actually ask questions like this, the mode tends to be slightly above average. On a five-point scale, it’s usually the second-highest score; on a ten-point scale, around 7–8. It feels like the truth lies in deciding whether it’s a 7 or an 8—they use that kind of NPS-style cutoff, right? (lol)
To begin with, I find the system of asking every customer to rate the staff pretty creepy. I could understand it if the service depended on the staff’s quick thinking, but it’s fairly standardized, and honestly, I wouldn’t know what to say even if they asked me. Do you give a high rating if they followed the manual? Or should I give a high rating to someone who casually uses emojis and acts overly familiar?
I once made a complaint of sorts. To be specific, I noticed on the day of the date that the woman I had been introduced to had changed her relationship type—from C to B, for example. I happened to check her profile while heading to the meeting place and saw that it had changed. The woman herself had done nothing wrong, but I still felt like, “Wait, what?” I sent just a brief message along the lines of, “I see her relationship type has changed,” and received a long, perfectly logical response: “Women may change their relationship type at any time at their own discretion. This is also stated in the notes.” It ended with, “Thank you for your understanding.”
I wasn’t criticizing the woman at all. It’s perfectly normal for someone to change her relationship type after meeting a previous person and noticing something that bothered her. But if you discover that it was changed just before you’re about to meet her for a date, naturally you think, “Wait, what?” I was really only thinking, “You could’ve told me sooner—come on,” but the staff member had already put on full armor and raised a shield, going into complete defensive mode. I felt like I was being treated as a dangerous customer in the making, so I rephrased it more constructively: “In situations like this, wouldn’t it be better to notify male members when the change is made?” The reply was simply, “Thank you for your feedback,” and that was the end of it. I thought, “Ah, this person really doesn’t see the issue at all.”
So how should this kind of situation be rated? Is it a top score because they managed to suppress a complaint? The fact that the customer exercised self-restraint and resolved the matter calmly is completely ignored, isn’t it? Will continuing with this kind of evaluation system really help develop staff who understand how customers feel?
Company F, which sells cosmetics online, also has physical stores. Apparently, the president watches the security-camera footage, and if he sees a staff member providing mediocre service, he calls the store and reprimands them. The service industry is incredibly difficult because there’s this idea that “the essence lies in the things that can’t be put into a manual.” I think that’s exactly why the president keeps watching footage from the shop floor.
There’s a guideline for respondents that says something like, “You can criticize the company, but please praise the staff.” I thought that was a wonderful sentiment coming from the president. However, when I consider things like survey ratings and tipping systems, as well as the staff I’ve personally dealt with, I sometimes feel that the direction of this systemization may be slightly off. That’s why I decided to write this. I sincerely apologize for making such an impertinent observation.
Taro Kida (93, the Mozart of Naniwa)
There don’t seem to be any specific guidelines for how feedback must be submitted, so I think it’s fine for the person asking to write whatever they feel is appropriate.
I seem to remember seeing a staff member mention that, when evaluating staff, the written comments matter more than the numerical rating.
If the feedback contains something resembling a complaint, they may take steps internally to improve things. If there’s nothing in particular written, they’ll probably assume everything went fine and process it accordingly.
