Editor’s note: Howard Waddell is president of Decision Resource, Inc., a Miami research firm.
The salesman at the dealership where I recently purchased a car told me that I would be receiving a call from “the home office” during which I would be asked about my overall experience with the dealership and about him in particular. “If you don’t give me the highest marks...” he said, and he proceeded to draw his outstretched fingers across his throat, execution-style.
Only a few weeks later, a factory-authorized appliance repairman, after finishing his work at my home, said I would be receiving a questionnaire in the mail about the service call. He said that getting the highest ratings was important to his career. I told him I would take care of him.
One of my clients, a senior executive at a local cruise line, once expressed some puzzlement about why past cruisers don’t take cruises more often. He explained that surveys conducted among disembarking passengers showed that virtually everyone rated the cruise as superior in every way. It wasn’t until I took a cruise myself in 1999 that I was able to shed some light on the issue.
Near the end of the cruise, there was a meeting in the ship’s theater to explain to the passengers what they needed to know about U.S. customs and immigration, tagging baggage, finding their baggage on the pier, and so on. The cruise director also explained that we would all receive a questionnaire about our cruise experience. He simply said that if we enjoyed the cruise, we should check off the highest ratings for each of the several attributes listed. Later in the day I spoke with our dining room tablemates and asked them how they rated the cruise on their questionnaires. They had followed the cruise director’s instructions precisely.
Based on the data that is being collected in the name of research, one can only wonder about the quality of the marketing deci...