PLEASE REVIEW ME Why only the weakest brands are asking for validation.
Is it just me, or is every brand now asking you to review their products and their service?
What’s worse than this, these surveys tend to be generic.
Let me give you an example.
I went to a car website the other day (and don’t get me started on how they all assume you want to go straight into the car configurator) and low and behold, a pop-up appears asking if I’d be willing to complete a short survey.
Being the generally lovely guy that I am, I completed the said survey.
I then went to another car manufacturer’s site, and after looking around it, the exact same survey pop-up appeared.
Different brand, same survey.
A coincidence you say.
Just to be sure I went to two other car brand websites and sure enough, exactly the same survey.
Now there are a few interesting conclusions to be drawn from this experience.
Firstly, most car manufacturer websites look very, very similar.
Even the photography now looks very similar.
So there’s little or no brand differentiation.
Next, they all seem to assume that you’re going to want to find out more about their car by watching a film.
Now, if approximately 50% of the nation are consuming websites on mobile, a huge percentage of this lot will not want to use up their data allowance simply to watch a visual tour of a car.
So they’re instantly excluding a significant number of potential buyers.
Lastly, and this is the crux of this little rant.
If all these surveys look the same, then these brands are saying that they’re just the same as each other.
In which case, buying a new car becomes a price purchase.
The last thing any brand wants to happen because prices will only be pushed down.
Yet this is a situation that’s being brought about by lazy data collection.
So, two things.
Really, really think hard about whether your brand needs a survey. Don’t be tempted into thinking it’s a great way of connecting with customers, it really isn’t.
If people have a complaint, they’ll tell you, if they’re happy, they might even tell their friends and family.
Lastly, if you think your brand is unique, and why wouldn’t you, don’t use the same survey as your competitors.