You want my feedback? What's in it for me?

Like everyone else who has any encounter whatsoever with an online or in-person business, I'm asked repeatedly to fill out a survey about it.

I was in marketing. I get it. You want to improve your products and services, and one way to do so is to figure out what you're doing right and keep doing it, and to figure out what you're doing wrong and stop doing it. And I understand that you want and need to solicit feedback whether it's going to be positive or negative. Especially given that human nature being what it is, people are more likely to go on line and review something when their experience was awful and they want to rant about it. So, yes, I get it.

And because I get it, I'm inclined to respond to surveys when asked. At least some of the time. I love my PCP, so I'll take the tedious phone survey after every appointment. When someone at the Post Office hands me my receipt with the online survey info circled, I try to respond - in hopes that the postal worker can amass some brownie points along the way. And when a clerk in a store does the same, I tend to fill those surveys out, too, especially if the clerk has been helpful. Again, brownie points and all that.

Sometimes I'll fill out the restaurant card, especially if the server and/or food was great. 

And while I seldom answer my landline, I will do so sometimes during political polling season and will happily play rate-the-candidates.

But why would I want to answer a survey after I've had an encounter with the UPS chatbot? Even if the chatbot was just a peach and my furious question was answered. 

Bank of America, if something gang agley, you'll know. But just because I've banked with you for decades, way back to when my checking account was with Bay Bank, or was it the First National Bank of Boston, no thanks when it comes to filling out a survey. 

My experience at Fenway Park? It would be one helluva lot better if the Red Sox actually won and if you relieved my anxiety (and that of most members of Red Sox Nation) if you signed Xander Boegarts and/or Raffy Devers to a long term contract. But you know that already and you don't need me to tell you.

It never seems to end.

I buy a spray of fake bittersweet on Etsy for nine bucks. Please rate the product? Yeah, well, it's fine, it just doesn't actually bear that close a resemblance to real bittersweet, but real bittersweet is invasive and illegal to buy, and since my sister is no longer in Wellfleet, I no longer have a place to acquire some for free in the wild.

I order a seven dollar gizmo on Amazon. Even if it falls apart the first time I use it, the magnitude of the purchase is so small that even if it's a piece of trash, it's not worth caveating other potential emptors.

All these folks that want my feedback. Back off!

It makes me want to ask a question I have seldom asked in my life - even though in my weaker moments I may have thought it once or twice, it's just not how I tend to roll - what's in it for me?

Well, I'm pleased to say that my grocery store, Roche Brothers, did make sure that there was something in it for me.

I don't know what triggered the "ask" from the clerk. I'm in and out of Roche Bros. several times a week, and I don't recall anyone asking me to fill out an online survey before. But last week, the woman checking me out pointed out the online survey link (and her name) on the receipt she handed me. And guess what? If I filled in the survey, I'd get 5% off my next purchase.

Not that I ever buy enough at one time to make that offer super valuable. Not that I was going to rush through the aisles, Supermarket Sweeps style, filling the cart with lobster and ribeye. But I did throw a few extras in there, and got nearly eight bucks off my bill. Not life-changing, but I'll take it.

I just don't understand why all outfits soliciting feedback don't offer something in return.

Back in my corporate marketing days - even before metric madness set it - we'd always offer a sweetener. A tee-shirt. A Dunkin gift card. A mousepad. At minimum, the opportunity to win something of value (however modest). 

Why don't more companies do this?

It wouldn't cost that much, especially if it's something like the Roche Brothers prize which, I'm guessing, most people set aside and forget about. (After filling out the survey online, you had to copy an award number onto the receipt and hand it in to the clerk next time you checked out.) 

Look, I'm an old, and I suspect that no one will be asking for my feedback for much longer. Maybe I'll rue the day I wished these invites away. Maybe I'll feel out of it, unwanted, useless. (Sniff, sniff.)

But, really and truly, getting pestered all the time is irksome. If you want my feedback, for the love of all that's good and holy, make it at least a little worth my while.