For the last couple of months I’ve been working for MaritzCustomer Experience, an international market research firm. I’m glad to have
the chance to work at home, doing work that I like. It’s been a little bit of
an adjustment, switching from working for a very small firm to working for a
very large firm. It’s been more of an adjustment in the topics I interview
people about.
When I worked for Saperstein Associates I did polling about
local politics and interviewed educators about educational materials. We moved
from project to project. I’ve worked on the same project at Maritz since I
started at the end of March. I interview people about their customer service
experience after they’ve visited one of the client’s stores.
Respondents often tell me that I did a good job interviewing
them, but that doesn’t always make me feel good. That’s because I remember
getting a call as a supervisor from a respondent who told me that she
appreciated that one of the interviewers I supervised did a good job explaining
the questions. In case you don’t know, an interviewer should never explain
questions to a respondent. It introduces bias to the survey.
Interviewing respondents about their customer service
experience often reminds me of the time that I made a comment about one of
Saperstein’s clients that “She couldn’t do a day in retail.” Those words taught
me a hard lesson on the words of Jesus, when he said, “For with what judgement
ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you again.” (Matthew 7:2, KJV)
I like to keep this verse in mind when I interview
cantankerous respondents who give low ratings to the people who work in the
client’s stores. I’m grateful that I didn’t have to be the one to sell
something to the cantankerous respondents, or deal with their problems.
If you apply to Maritz, please be sure to tell them that I referred you.
