One of the most significant variables is the type of business. We've all had the experience of arriving home after a long day of work, throwing some juicy steaks on the grill, and just when they are within seconds of being the perfect pink shade of medium rare, the phone rings. So, you see, the type of industry that is looking for feedback plays a major role in determining whether a customer-satisfaction survey is appropriate. On the other hand, if we receive the call from someone who we perceive as disruptive or invasive, it has a negative impact.
Timing is also another vitally important variable.
People find dinner-hour calls particularly annoying, and these should be avoided at all costs. Because so many consumers have become disillusioned with the seemingly expanding plethora of telemarketers, any business considering this type of customer survey must proceed with caution. While this may be true statistically, in the world of small business, return on investment is a foundation principle for almost every business decision. You may be applying logic and thinking that if you go to the trouble to call customers, they won't be upset because you are just trying to find out what you can do to serve people better. Before you begin any type of telephone customer-satisfaction survey, I would encourage you to spend some time thinking about how you could obtain the same information from your customers with a different approach.