Take two (surveys) and call me in the morning
Here’s another one of those customer experience stories that I’ve been shaking my head about for a month or so. It’s also a story about how NOT to do customer research - two marketing stories in one!
I was at my doctor’s office for a visit recently (my third such in as many months…don’t ask) and when I checked in for my appointment I was handed a clipboard with two, one-page surveys attached. The receptionist behind the window (call her Sally for narrative sake) asked that I fill them out while waiting to be called in for my appointment. I asked what they were for. Sally answered that the first was a “phone survey”. Being asked to take a phone survey while standing there in-person naturally confused me so I asked Sally to clarify. She said it was a survey about their phone system. Albeit still confusing, I discerned (on my own) that they wanted feedback on my experience with their interactive voice response (IVR) system when making appointments, getting information, leaving messages etc. The second, I was told, was “some research” one of the doctors in the practice was conducting. She then offered that if I had already completed a “PHQ-9″ survey that I shouldn’t do it again. Having never heard of anything even remotely similar I took the clipboard and sat down.
I began to fill out the surveys. The first was straight forward and asked, from my professional perspective, meaningful questions that related directly to my actual experience. It was short and to the point and took all of a minute to fill out. There were nine quantitative and one final, qualitative question. (Note: this practice’s IVR system is simple and pretty good; as good as these things can get in my opinion…that’s what I told them on question 10.)
I flipped the page to the second survey and started reading. It had only PHQ-9 printed on the header. There was neither a description nor any directions. The first question was my name. The second was, well, very personal. So were the third, and the fourth…all the way to 20! Having a wife who used to rep Prozac for Lilly for a number of years I recognized that the survey was asking about the incidence of the symptoms of clinical depression–a worthy topic for a doctor to be researching for sure.
I paused to consider the subject matter and the fact that my name was requested. I looked at the bottom of the page for the privacy disclosure (remember HIPPA?) Surprised not to find any, I walked back to Sally’s window and asked her specifically what the survey was going to be used for and was my name required. To my first question she answered, “I don’t know, I was asked to hand these out to everyone who checked in.” I then further inquired about which doctor was commissioning it. To this Sally replied, “I don’t know,” and turned back to the work she was doing. So I asked her my second question (is name required) again. Sally turned to me, a bit annoyed, and said simply, “yes”. “What happens if I fill it out without my name?” I countered. And with all the frustration Sally could affect she said, “It won’t be counted.”
As a patient I wanted to ask more questions: won’t be counted toward what? Will my responses be posted somewhere available to the public? Is this part of a larger survey this doctor is participating in? Sally, clearly, wasn’t going to have any of the answers, and the pain I was going to feel in the process of getting them was probably more than any I might receive on the other side of the office door.
As a marketing professional I wanted to ask even more questions: is the survey testing some hypothesis? What is the target sample size? What respondent criteria was the survey designed around? What is the chi-squared? (Not really, but throwing that stat term around always seems to impress our research vendors…maybe it’s having the same effect on you??)
None of us would expect even a professional research administrator to know the answers to the hard core research questions, but certainly Sally needed to be better trained to answer, even simply more informed about, the basic FAQs. This is especially the case with a survey regarding such a private matter (we’re not talking about a post-service questionnaire from Jiffy Lube here!) In about five minutes Sally could have been educated about everything she needed to know in order to answer 95% of the questions she might be asked by patients.
In addition to being left with a very low opinion of the research acumen of my doctor’s office (not to mention my extreme doubts about the efficacy of the research itself), I was disappointed with the customer experience I just had. And yes, although not often referred to as such in a healthcare setting, I am their “customer”. Research can be a very valuable customer touchpoint on a number of levels if administered well. Done poorly, it can have the exact opposite effect. If you’ve deemed your research objectives to be important enough to take your customers’ time and effort, take some of your own time and, if necessary, money to ensure they are free to focus on the topic at hand and are not distracted by poor handling. Your findings will be more accurate and your customers will appreciate it. You will make them happier to be your customer. This is a huge return on a small investment.
-Dave Goldberg