Online businesses are feedback crazy.
I understand the need for follow-up, customer service, and keeping metrics as much as the next guy, but I’m noticing follow-up survey overload lately. You?
An innocent call to AT&T so you can recover your voicemail password results in an immediate email to your primary account that asks you to take “just 5 minutes” to provide insight into “…how we handled your call…”
Inquire for help on your new CRM software, and that same day, there’s a query for you to fill out a survey on “…the quality of our customer service…”
The survey is inevitably full of pages asking you rate your experience on a scale of 1-10 or 1-5, and then there’s the added dialog box so you can provide “any other comment”. On a two-minute call to recover my password? Really?
The trend got me to thinking, though, about the likelihood of such a practice being tolerated in the voiceover business. We all claim to be feedback-starved on our work, so what’s to stop us from jumping on Survey Monkey and sending out a follow-up questionnaire to our clients and prospects that looks like this?
———————
1) Do you remember receiving Dave’s recent demo/audition/audio recording?
yes
no
2) On a scale of 1-10, 10 being “very satisfied”, and 1 being “very unsatisfied”, how would you rate the quality of this recording?
3) On a scale of 1-10, 10 being “very satisfied”, and 1 being “very unsatisfied”, how closely would you say Dave stuck to the directions you provided?
Any comment?
4) Did Dave offer any other versions of the copy in addition to the one that you requested?
yes
no
5) Did the alternate version of the audition sound better to you than the one that stuck to the directions?
yes
no
any comment?
6) On a scale of 1-10, 10 being “very satisfied”, and 1 being “very unsatisfied”, were you happy with the timeliness of Dave’s response to your request?
7) What elements of the recording did you find to be spot-on? (check all that apply)
- pacing
- timbre
- interpretation
- articulation
- dialect
- character
- attitude
- intent
8) What elements of the recording did you think fell short of expectations? (check all that apply)
- pacing
- timbre
- interpretation
- articulation
- dialect
- character
- attitude
- intent
9) On a scale of 1-10, 10 being “compares very favorably”, and 1 being “doesn’t compare at all”, how would you rate Dave’s recording in relation to the other auditions you received?
10) Would you be comfortable recommending Dave as a voice-talent to other producers/booking agents/audio engineers?
yes
no
11) If so, please provide two names and email addresses:
_______________________________
_______________________________
12) For marketing purposes would you provide the following information?
Name__________________________
Age____________________________
Company name___________________
Email__________________________
Phone # ________________________
Best time of day to contact___________
Annual Gross income_______________
13) Thanks for your time! If you entered your email address, you will be entered in a drawing for a $10 Starbucks card.
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So what do you think? Would such a feedback survey form have a chance in hell of ever being returned?…ah…NO! (especially items 11 & 12) I know it’s recommended for all the performing arts that once you’ve delivered your audition…forget it. But it’s a fun exercise, huh?
CourVO