In college I waited tables at a Big Corporate Restaurant, the one that gives out unlimited breadsticks.

This was like 2014-2016, and the trend we see here was already in full swing. They came out with these little touch screens where the customers could swipe their card to pay instead of waiting for the check(which was actually a cool feature). But they would also be prompted to take a survey after their meal, rating their experience. The managers would print the survey results for the 60-something servers on staff and posted them outside the office. If you were below an 80 out of 100 for three shifts in a row you would get your hours cut. If you couldnt get the rating up it was widely understood that you would be essentially fired by just not getting on the schedule.

It was all incredibly stupid and clear that whoever came up with the idea had NEVER worked in a restaurant in any capacity. Like yeah, lets give the customers, the people with the LEAST information about whats happening in the restaurant, the ability to be the sole evaluators of performance. Its "the customer is always right" in its absolute worst iteration ever.

So if the star dishwasher had the bubonic plague and was out for two weeks, and the kitchen was backed up because the line cooks had to do double duty washing dishes, and the host team kept forgetting to give custmers silverware because they were constantly waiting for all of it to be cleaned, then the surveys were fucked because theres nothing you can do to make someone happy if their food take 45 minutes to come out and they dont have silverware when they get it. And it all went on the servers, who then lost money by losing shifts.

I could see how this Outback system may even be an improvement on certain aspects of the data. First, you are not relying on the idiot customers of Outback to rate your restaurant's performance - something a manager should be trained to do anyway. Second, if the above scenario happens, the servers can avoid culpability by showing that they are doing their job- check tables often and refill drinks - so if customer is pissed that their food took 45 minutes at least you can narrow it down and be able to tell whose fault it is. That sounds like an improvement to me.

BUT, i would never trust the managers to actually be able to interpret the data and pinpoint something like that. The average manager of TGI Chilibees, or Outback, or Olive Garden, does not know anything about data or how to interpret survey results. So more often than not, the numbers just become another weapon for them to exercise their power trip with. And the more numbers they get, the more opportunity to screw it up. Its gonna be too much information for them to handle.

Hell, it would be too much info for a full blown data savant to handle considering how damn busy running a restaurant is, and dealing with the human element of employees and customers on top of the data. Even if they aced their high school statistics class and are capable of properly interpreting the data to make adjustments, they will NEVER have enough time to sit there and crunch numbers enough to make proper "data driven" decisions. For that reason, this will fail.