At Walgreens: An Amazing Abuse Of the Customer Satisfaction Survey

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how fed up I am with customer satisfaction surveys (link here). Truth is that companies are out of control – thinking it’s the job of consumers to fill out a constant stream of surveys.

Sign at a drive-thru pharmacy inviting drivers to fill out a survey—inside the store!

So I’m going to pick on Walgreens here – not because they are the worst. But because I have recent Walgreens experiences that show how messed up this constant survey abuse is.

What Happened at Walgreens. At the time of my prior post, Skye Weadick sent me a photo of what she saw at one drive-up pharmacy window at a Walgreen’s.

The desperation evident in that sign seemed bad enough. Really? Asking customers to come around, park, and walk in to the store to fill out a survey?

Except… I was at a Walgreen’s this week – a different one – and heard an amazing employee discussion with two people in line.

“Dude. It’s Not Our Problem”: ThinkGeek.com Blows their Brand This Time

It would make sense that oddity website ThinkGeek.com would be intimately familiar with de-motivator posters from Despair.com. It’s just sad that today’s customer rep picked the one that says “We’re not satisfied until you’re not satisfied”.

I just got off the phone from my worst customer service experience in…well…a long time. And this catalog that tries to look advanced and clever made the most fundamental customer service mistake: they rambled extensively out of their way to dodge responsibility.