The Corporate Double Vision Trick.

This blog has comprised mostly inconsequential asides lately, hasn’t it, so let’s have an outcry for a change just to keep the title honest. Imagine this:

You’re contracted to a large company for the supply of something-or-other and you have very low regard for them because their systems and general conduct suck, but you stay with them because it’s more convenient or you have no other realistic option. But then you have a problem and need to call them to get it sorted, so that’s what you do through gritted teeth.

Having sat through all the obstacles they lay in your path to make your teeth ache with the ever-increasing pressure, you eventually find yourself talking to a customer service advisor who is affable, helpful, knowledgeable, and probably even sympathetic. He or she deals with your problem efficaciously, everything is now fine, and your teeth can go back to the state of rest which is their normal condition. (Careful selection of customer service advisors is a good way of aping Macbeth’s dictum that ‘fair face must hide what the false heart does know.’)

OK, so what happens next? You receive an email from the company which approximates to:

Bearing in mind the contact you just had with Kerry, our customer service advisor, how likely are you to recommend our company to other people?

What do you do? If you’re so buoyed by satisfaction and relief that you click 5 stars out of 5 you’d be lying, because the only person to whom you would recommend this company would be your worst enemy on a day when you were feeling particularly vindictive. If, on the other hand, you click 1 star out of 5, it might reflect badly on dear Kerry and that would be inaccurate and grossly unfair.

(Now, suppose you run out with your football team to play a game and notice that each end of the pitch has two goals. You ask the referee: ‘Which goal is the correct one?’ ‘Oh they’re both correct,’ says the ref, ‘but what you need to understand is that whichever goal the ball enters will be automatically deemed the wrong one, so you won’t score.’)

That’s the game the big companies seem to be playing, and so you decline to reply to their manipulative and damn silly questionnaire.