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It pays to keep complaining


oldchap

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Just shows don't take first refusal!

Had invite from Opini (one of cint), completed survey but page stuck on the partner screen, didn't go back to Opini.

Sent e-mail:-

"Had this invite, went right through survey & got message that I’d completed (see attached) but didn’t go back to Opini - so has it registered?"

Standard reply:-
Thank you for your enquiry. Our records show that you timed out of the survey. This can happen if a survey is started and left for a few minutes having started it. In other words, the survey was started but never finished. This occurs most often when the survey was started or almost finished, but without hitting an end page, ie, the browser was closed before hitting the submit button for the survey.

Went back to them:-
I did not start and leave the survey. If you look at the screen shot I sent it clearly shows “Thank you for taking our survey” So surveygizmo shows completion, but it did not go back to Opini. Yet again you seem to be doing everything you can to avoid paying a few pence!

Another reply
Thank you for your response. I have forwarded your concern to our technical team to check if there was any issue with the survey. I will get back to you as soon as I have any update from the team. Appreciate your patience.

Then a few days later
Our team checked the study and found that it has been closed but the set-completes (final marking) have not yet been done. We reached out to the project manager to confirm your participation with the client to get credited hopefully. Now, I have received confirmation from the team that your survey has been marked as completed and your account also has been rewarded for the survey.

So if you ever get refused, keep complaining
 

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Yep, the squeaky wheel gets the grease! Good on you for standing your ground. These survey companies want people to give up so they can rip them off and pocket the extra money.

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1 hour ago, dawn_b_adams said:

Yep, the squeaky wheel gets the grease! Good on you for standing your ground. These survey companies want people to give up so they can rip them off and pocket the extra money.

A few years ago I would fight with a survey company if I thought they were in the wrong  but now I don't have the energy 90% of the time they don't even respond.

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Your observations that so-called support did not even look at the screenshot attachment is so apt for the standard response. I've had numerous support positions in the past and your experience shows three things. 1) This support team is rewarded for metrics and not resolution. Metrics are numbers from reports on how well an inbox is cleared and how fast. If panelists are suitably discouraged and don't followup, that is considered "resolved" in this support world, whether you were credit or compensated for your activity. The support person carried out a very low quality support methodology, called DEFLECTION,  all the information you provided, was ignored and the support response was done without any concern for appropriateness.  2) The panelist is not important, the support reply made to you was what is referred to as a "Canned Reply", these can be sent out 100's of times a day from a drop down menu or a keyboard function key. I've been in a support role where I had access to canned replies. However, I crafted the response to be an appropriate reflection of the issue the customer contacted the company about.  Also, you clearly outlined the issue and provided evidence to support your experience. That to was ignored. 3) It is difficult for support to reach the next tier or project managers.  Only by being persistent, did you push through the support barrier. This support group is obviously not rewarded by being proactive or identifying emerging issues. Metrics can be used to penalize those that spend time on the panelist, or reporting trends, because it doesn't reflect in the numbers management would want to present to the C-Level.

While, I do commend you on your successful diligence, you have only won a battle. This issue will be repeated over and over on panelists that aren't sophisticated enough to form a support counter response or find rating forums to post the their poor experience. I've won my share of battles, and wasn't successful on others. I think the reason for the frequency of uncredited surveys are both incompetence and unethical behavior, both get work for free.  This marginalization of Panelists is worth a lot of money in a 50 billion dollar industry.

So, when I've been marginalized by a panel or survey company, I am steeled to start working on eroding their reputation. I do research, which I relish, make high impact complaints and tell others how to do the same.  Reputation equates to money.

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Well done. It's always good to hear of a victory, no matter how small. I suppose I'm like most others here in that I make a subconscious calculation before pursuing a complaint: what are the chances of success, is it worth my time, what does previous experience with this panel suggest? Sometimes the injustice is so egregious that all of these considerations go out of the window and you just have to go to war. There was an occasion  a few months ago that so infuriated me that I wouldn't let it go: I spent an hour doing the first of a two-part survey but then was denied access to part two so received no recompense at all. I thought this was probably a technical problem that could be resolved quickly, but the ineptitude and bone-headed stupidity of the customer services was the worst I'd ever encountered - and this from a panel I'd previously sung the praises of. I had to repeat my answers to their questions time and time again and kept receiving 'Good news! Your request has been resolved.' responses that were laughably inappropriate. I realise that this probably (hopefully) was automated rather than the work of an allegedly sentient human, but it's nonetheless unforgiveable that anyone should concoct such a tone-deaf system. The outcome was that I didn't receive the reward and wasted a lot of time, but I simply couldn't have let this one go.

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On 9/1/2020 at 6:05 PM, schludermann said:

Your observations that so-called support did not even look at the screenshot attachment is so apt for the standard response. I've had numerous support positions in the past and your experience shows three things. 1) This support team is rewarded for metrics and not resolution. Metrics are numbers from reports on how well an inbox is cleared and how fast. If panelists are suitably discouraged and don't followup, that is considered "resolved" in this support world, whether you were credit or compensated for your activity. The support person carried out a very low quality support methodology, called DEFLECTION,  all the information you provided, was ignored and the support response was done without any concern for appropriateness.  2) The panelist is not important, the support reply made to you was what is referred to as a "Canned Reply", these can be sent out 100's of times a day from a drop down menu or a keyboard function key. I've been in a support role where I had access to canned replies. However, I crafted the response to be an appropriate reflection of the issue the customer contacted the company about.  Also, you clearly outlined the issue and provided evidence to support your experience. That to was ignored. 3) It is difficult for support to reach the next tier or project managers.  Only by being persistent, did you push through the support barrier. This support group is obviously not rewarded by being proactive or identifying emerging issues. Metrics can be used to penalize those that spend time on the panelist, or reporting trends, because it doesn't reflect in the numbers management would want to present to the C-Level.

While, I do commend you on your successful diligence, you have only won a battle. This issue will be repeated over and over on panelists that aren't sophisticated enough to form a support counter response or find rating forums to post the their poor experience. I've won my share of battles, and wasn't successful on others. I think the reason for the frequency of uncredited surveys are both incompetence and unethical behavior, both get work for free.  This marginalization of Panelists is worth a lot of money in a 50 billion dollar industry.

So, when I've been marginalized by a panel or survey company, I am steeled to start working on eroding their reputation. I do research, which I relish, make high impact complaints and tell others how to do the same.  Reputation equates to money.

You are completely spot on with this. Every ticket they get, they want resolved ASAP so as not to get back logged.

They couldn't care less about us and just want to scam us out of a few pennies. I have lost count of the amount of times that they haven't even read my email and just send the bog standard reply back.

This infuriates me. Sometimes it pays to keep sending the emails as to get the reward but most of the time in my experience it's a complete waste of time.

 

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