The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
I Just Want to Make Toast
Wednesday - October 04, 2006 01:50 PM in
I can't remember the TV show or movie, but it was the actress and comedienne Betty White who spoke the line: "I don't need to know how the toaster works, I just want to make toast."
That has been a phrase I've often used when explaining that the outcome of a "thing" is more important to me than knowing the technical details of how a thing operates.
Unfortunately, in the realm of statistics and surveys, how the study is built determines the reliability of the results (edibility of the toast). It is a profoundly sad truism that people either accept or write off the results of a survey without understanding their own interpretation bias; whether the technique of information gathering is objective and so results in reliable answers.
This morning, I again read the old phrase "There are lies, damn lies and statistics." Know this: statistics are not the problem. An objectively posed question asked of a large enough representative sample of a population will give truthful answers.
So as much as we'd rather just make toast, when it comes to survey results we need to know if the questions are objectively posed to a fair sample of respondents. And this is especially true when a study results in an answer we don't agree with.
There is a term used by statisticians called "confirmation bias" which simply means that we readily accept news that fits our belief system and tend to summarily reject that which doesn't. Thus false data is often accepted without question such as a survey that says a company is delivering good service, and truthful data like delivering poor service is summarily rejected. This phenomenon is a significant reason why bad customer service exists. Management genuinely believes they are delivering good service because they want to believe it, and will want to reject any data that doesn't support the belief.
Don't fall into that trap. Sometimes you DO have to know how the toaster works.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Unfortunately, in the realm of statistics and surveys, how the study is built determines the reliability of the results (edibility of the toast). It is a profoundly sad truism that people either accept or write off the results of a survey without understanding their own interpretation bias; whether the technique of information gathering is objective and so results in reliable answers.
This morning, I again read the old phrase "There are lies, damn lies and statistics." Know this: statistics are not the problem. An objectively posed question asked of a large enough representative sample of a population will give truthful answers.
So as much as we'd rather just make toast, when it comes to survey results we need to know if the questions are objectively posed to a fair sample of respondents. And this is especially true when a study results in an answer we don't agree with.
There is a term used by statisticians called "confirmation bias" which simply means that we readily accept news that fits our belief system and tend to summarily reject that which doesn't. Thus false data is often accepted without question such as a survey that says a company is delivering good service, and truthful data like delivering poor service is summarily rejected. This phenomenon is a significant reason why bad customer service exists. Management genuinely believes they are delivering good service because they want to believe it, and will want to reject any data that doesn't support the belief.
Don't fall into that trap. Sometimes you DO have to know how the toaster works.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted at 01:50 PM by | | | |