Restaurant Surveys

Continued from yesterday.

The “How Are We Doing?” survey card I took from the Golden Corral restaurant table, with the waitress’ name on it:

Food: Poor, Average, Good, Excellent

Service: Poor, Average, Good, Excellent

Employees: Poor, Average, Good, Excellent

Cleanliness: Poor, Average, Good, Excellent

Value: Poor, Average, Good, Excellent

The above is a sensible and, I would presume, useful questionnaire. The answers are intuitive for the implied questions — “How was the food?” — and the answers actually, logically mean something. “Good” means better than average, and “Excellent” means better than good. The answers are objective adjectives to describe the subject.

But the online survey form is stupid:

The food tasted great: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree

The wait staff was friendly and hospitable: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree

The dining room was clean: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree

The food areas were clean: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree

Apparently “Strongly Agree” is supposed to be better than “Agree.” But that’s neither intuitive nor logical. The response is not to a question, but to a statement. It’s not “How did the food taste?”, it’s “The food tasted great.”

If I say “Agree,” does that mean the food tasted great? If I answer “Strongly Agree,” does that mean the food tasted better than great?

If the dining room was dirty, do I simply disagree that it was clean, or strongly disagree? Does “Strongly Disagree” mean dirtier than “Disagree”? Does “Neither Agree nor Disagree” mean the dining room was somewhat clean or somewhat dirty?

To make matters worse with these surveys, it seems that many restaurants are only happy with “Strongly Agree”-type answers. (Or “Very Satisfied” depending on the restaurant.)

Over the past year, I’ve had a few waiters and waitresses talk to me about these online surveys advertised on the meal receipts. Recently a Chili’s waitress directly told me that they only get credit for “Very Satisfied” answers. Out of curiosity, I checked out the online survey to see what she was talking about. The survey items were similar to the statements above, and the answers were: Very Unsatisfied, Unsatisfied, Satisfied, Very Satisfied.

So the server would only get kudos or brownie points if I answered the statement “The service was great” with “Very Satisfied.”

Apparently this is also the case with Golden Corral. My waitress — who was excellent, despite the restaurant being a buffet service — wrote her name on my meal receipt with a parenthetical note: “strongly agree”. Had she not written that note, and had I not previously had an explanation from a different waitress at a different restaurant, I would have responded to “The wait staff was friendly and hospitable” with simply “Agree”.

I mean, I agree that my waitress was friendly and hospitable. But apparently the management of GC isn’t truly happy unless a customer taking the time to visit the company Web site and fill out the online survey strongly agrees with the statement. Merely agreeing is dismissable.

Survey “questions” phrased as statements (requiring other than simple “True or False” or “Agree or Disagree” answers) are stupid and misleading: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree (this means I think they are stupider and misleadinger than if I just said “Agree”)

The sky is blue: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree (this means I think it is not blue enough for me to “Strongly Agree”)

Bullgrit