Data Inside the Outside House

I had to ring up my Home PPC support company today, and the guy was fantastic. He answered my questions and was really helpful.

Bravo.

7 hours later I get an email from the same company asking me to take part in an online survey about their customer service, and I thought, yes, I will. I don’t normally.

There was a link to the company's website. I clicked. There was a question.

I answered it. There was another. Again... and again. After about ten I started to think that I was glad I had been honest all the way, or else it just would be a waste of my time. It was a weird notion I hadn't had before. To place value in the data you give someone else online.

And so with a renewed interest, I clicked on. 4 radio buttons. Each one:

  • Strongly Agree
  • Agree
  • Disagree
  • Strongly Disagree


So there is no room for indecision. I wasn’t sure what they would do with this data.

  • Churn it through some queries and turn my answers into a dot on a board room graph that gets 30 seconds of look-see.
  • Or would they tailor their emails at me more successfully in the future.
  • If I log into their website will it be slightly different for me than for someone else who answered the poll
  • Or something real smart.

Whatever it was, I hoped it wasn’t evil, and I pressed on through the mire.


The questions starting getting weird:

"We trust you as a customer when you are on the phone to us:"

  • Strongly Agree
  • Agree
  • Disagree
  • Strongly Disagree



I mean, I'm not sure how to answer that. Do they?

Why should they trust me, they don't know me.


If they did trust me, actually, I am not sure I would trust them. So I don't know if I agree or disagree, I genuinely am unsure.

But they force you to answer. To continue , you must choose.


  • Strongly Agree
  • Agree
  • Disagree
  • Strongly Disagree


I answered, I can't remember which. Click..click...

... and then as the questions rolled ever onwards, as my concentration was prodded from every angle, I started to dislike them. I felt they were wasting my time. That they really didn't need to know any of this to make my life better or theirs.

It was just collecting data for the sake of collecting data. Which is great, but not when it wastes human time.

Harvest my data,
But don't waste my time.
Reserve us our privacy,
When you data-mine.