The problem is that in any kind of customer facing scenario this feedback maps to a KPI that, often, an individual employee's or team's performance is assessed on. That KPI might impact pay reviews, bonuses, promotions, or even ongoing employment at the extreme.
Which sucks.
It's to the point where, when we broke down in a live lane on a dual carriageway the other day (flat tyre - actually shredded a run flat, newer car so no spare, all lay-bys closed so nowhere to pull off road and couldn't make it to next exit), the police came out and cordoned off the lane and then the AA guy who came and rescued us asked if we could write him a review when the feedback request came through.
Of course, on this occasion I did write him an absolutely glowing review (which he very much deserved, and which I was more than happy to do), because this was an incredibly dangerous situation - potentially life or death. I also sent a thank you to the local police force that helped us out.
But that's the point: it was life or death. It really mattered. So of course I wanted to say thank you, and the feedback mechanism provided a decent way to do that.
But most of these feedback requests are for things that don't matter that much, if at all, and are no better than spam, because of course everybody asks for it for every little interaction nowadays... and it's just endlessly tiresome.
So, yes: please stop.
(Btw, as someone who worked in market research for 7 years I can tell you that CX reviews skew towards the extremes - either very positive or very negative - and that you're much more likely to get a review if someone has a bad experience than if they have a good one. As a result, whilst these reviews can be good for qualitatively highlighting specific problems that might need to be solved, deriving any kind of aggregate score from them and expecting that to be representative of the average customer's experience is a fool's errand. Please don't do it. [Aside: I know, I know - this will stop no-one but I'd feel remiss if I didn't point it out, especially on this site where a lot of you will - I hope - get the point and apply it in your own businesses.])
Which sucks.
It's to the point where, when we broke down in a live lane on a dual carriageway the other day (flat tyre - actually shredded a run flat, newer car so no spare, all lay-bys closed so nowhere to pull off road and couldn't make it to next exit), the police came out and cordoned off the lane and then the AA guy who came and rescued us asked if we could write him a review when the feedback request came through.
Of course, on this occasion I did write him an absolutely glowing review (which he very much deserved, and which I was more than happy to do), because this was an incredibly dangerous situation - potentially life or death. I also sent a thank you to the local police force that helped us out.
But that's the point: it was life or death. It really mattered. So of course I wanted to say thank you, and the feedback mechanism provided a decent way to do that.
But most of these feedback requests are for things that don't matter that much, if at all, and are no better than spam, because of course everybody asks for it for every little interaction nowadays... and it's just endlessly tiresome.
So, yes: please stop.
(Btw, as someone who worked in market research for 7 years I can tell you that CX reviews skew towards the extremes - either very positive or very negative - and that you're much more likely to get a review if someone has a bad experience than if they have a good one. As a result, whilst these reviews can be good for qualitatively highlighting specific problems that might need to be solved, deriving any kind of aggregate score from them and expecting that to be representative of the average customer's experience is a fool's errand. Please don't do it. [Aside: I know, I know - this will stop no-one but I'd feel remiss if I didn't point it out, especially on this site where a lot of you will - I hope - get the point and apply it in your own businesses.])