Asking Questions - The Definitive Guide To Questionnaire Design ...

ASKING QUESTIONS THAT EVALUATE PERFORMANCE 227
critical for accurate product or service ratings in an industry. Managers
in a single organization may have limited information about
how well products and services are produced and delivered by
competitors or by the industry as a whole. On average, however,
a customer is probably more aware of the range of features and
benefits that are typically available. In the end, if customers are
unhappy with a particular company’s products or services, managers
need to know the problems and the source before they can
change the system and improve customer satisfaction (Bounds
and Dobbins, 1991).
If a front-line employee consistently receives low customer
ratings, then the individual may be a true detriment to the organization.
In today’s marketplace, ignoring such an employee’s performance
would be costly to the organization.
Unfortunately, the appraisal field has generally focused on the
ratings of managers or supervisors and neglected customer feedback.
In contrast, until recently, client customer evaluation systems were
almost always designed by marketers who are interested in ways to
generally change the service and product and who are less interested
in the individual appraisal of employees. For instance, some
employees believe that “secret shoppers” are hard-to-detect enemies
out to take their job away, and that an institutionalized form of formal
client feedback can only prevent them from receiving salary increases.
Although it would be valuable to have consistent consumer
ratings across time, this is seldom possible because of the ad hoc
nature of most of these evaluations.
One key issue is whether customers who have interacted with
an employee can make an accurate and unbiased rating of the employee’s
performance. In many contexts, there is an inherent conflict
between the customer and the employee. For example, suppose
a mechanic and customer are trying to agree on a mutually acceptable
maintenance fee. The mechanic may think his efforts are
worth more than the customer thinks. It can be difficult for such a
customer to make unbiased ratings during such a conflict.