On March 9 the Wall Street Journal published this article by Alexandra Samuel about feedback fatigue, describing how "in their eagerness to deliver a better customer experience" by incessantly asking for reviews and evaluations, "companies have created a new kind of bad customer experience: feedback fatigue." Ms. Samuel cites two studies that discovered that customers don't like the surveys. "Repeated surveys," she wrote, "may make customers reluctant to return." She described a 2014 study as showing that "over-surveying by different organizations leads to exhaustion with all the requests for feedback."
The article brought to mind one fine example of a business being less than careful with its customer outreach, way back in 1974. The particular business was a New York City hospital, and it sent this letter to a former patient, Jane Ace. I've shortened it a bit:
December 6, 1974
Dear Mrs. Ace:
As a recent patient you have seen how our hospital serves its community by providing a full range of medical services, offering a high level of nursing service together with physical amenities, enabling the hospital to treat the patient as a person, rather than a number. We are appealing to former patients like yourself to contribute to the hospital's Capital Improvement Fund . . .
[Signed by the president of the hospital]
Mrs. Ace and her husband Goodman Ace were well-known radio personalities, and he was a veteran humorist. He felt that the letter wasn't appropriate, and wrote the following response, which has stuck with me since I first read it in 1975:
December 8, 1974
Dear Sir:
As a former patient I did notice your high-level nursing service together with its other amenities, and I would dearly like to contribute to your hospital fund. But, you see, on November 11 I died in your hospital. Maybe we can get together later.
Sincerely, Jane Ace