Those scary 4 words. You hear them from your spouse, teacher, supervisor and you cringe. From an HR perspective, I usually have to close the door as it usually means that employee is in trouble for … something. Attendance, no call no show, customer complaint, … or the dreaded “survey results” conversation. As a consumer, you can use an internal “anonymous” review of employees. We call this “Mystery Shopper”. Of course, this doesn’t work in every industry or field, but it is something that can actually get an employee fired if they get enough bad survey results. Every Fortune 500 company that has customers have surveys. They also have reviews. They also have to fear angry customers exploding on their social media pages. If management or someone in the company wants to get rid of you, they are going to find a way. Sometimes they are assholes and get you on a “technicality” like a survey result that you can’t prove or disprove or defend yourself. If you didn’t know, your “5 star” review of your Uber/Lyft driver is super important. You can use that as a weapon. However, they can rate you too, and if you get too many 1 star reviews, no driver will pick you up, regardless what level of car you select.
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So if you are the employee being rated, and you establish rapport with your new customer/client/friend, you can coerce them into giving you 5 stars. How? Ask them is there anything you can do for them before they leave the store to improve their 5 star experience. Maybe they wanted you to pair their phone to their car and you didn’t offer or ask? You are not a mind reader so ask before they rate you. When you are interacting let them know your goal is to provide a 5 star experience, and anything less is not acceptable for you. You can also let them know your job security and likelihood of helping them in the future depends on it. So, bad score, no employee. Got it. They get it. If they like you, they will use your name and say how amazing and awesome you are, and they are bringing all their friends and colleagues as new customers. Seriously, management loves hearing actual comments like that. I would tell my wireless customers I would give them free rollover minutes. <wink> Cost me nothing, but meant the world to them. It is also kind of important to know what you are being scored on so you meet or exceed those expectations. Like, did you offer financing? Join the membership rewards club? Ask for referrals?
So if you are working on your career plan, you should also track it. If you are collecting unemployment this is required. Use Microsoft Excel or some spreadsheet and copy and paste the job description, company information/history, in a way you can follow up and remember what you applied for. What if you apply for 25 jobs, all the same, and 10 call back and you have no clue what it is you applied. You want to sound smart and intelligent. Keep it in the cloud so you can update/review it on the go, or when you are about to walk into your in person interview. Having zero clue about the job or company shows you are unprepared and not a good fit. Use Glassdoor.com for additional company research. It is also a good idea to know who the owners/leadership are in the company.
