Want my opinion?
All you have to do is ask. I have an opinion about anything you can think of. Sports? Slam dunk. Movies? You can’t handle the truth. Politics? Bigly.
However, if you’re a business I patronize, offer me something good in exchange for my opinion – such as a chance to win a gift card or at least a coupon for my next visit. Rest assured, I check the bottom of my receipts for survey offers – everywhere I go.
It just so happens that before working on this article, I completed an online survey for ALDI – my grocery store of choice.
I told them the usual stuff. How much would I recommend ALDI to a friend? 10. How clean was the store? 8 (but the exterior is prone to litter). Did you find everything you wanted? No. Please tell us more (level of detail meter is ready to judge my comments). Wanting to please the people at ALDI and hoping to increase my odds of winning a gift card, I describe how for the past three weeks they have been out of teriyaki sauce and that my husband keeps asking if we have any teriyaki sauce every time I make chicken fried rice and I have to say no, ALDI is still out and all we have is soy sauce and he’s really disappointed about it… (the meter is maxed out and won’t allow me to type anymore.) Apparently, the ALDI people were over my teriyaki sauce details. I’m hopeful there will be oodles of teriyaki sauce available on my next shopping trip because the ALDI people care, right? (Update: they’re still out.)
The survey concludes with: Do you want to be entered into a drawing for a $100 gift card? Heck yes, I do! I complete the fields while dreaming about perusing the ALDI Finds aisle, $100 richer.
Before this, I completed a T.J.Maxx survey with a chance to win a $500 gift card. I informed the T.J.Maxx people they should offer more women’s golf clothes, no I didn’t use the dressing rooms, and yes I browsed the impulse purchase items lining the checkout line (it’s impossible not to). I wanted to tell them about what brought me to T.J.Maxx in the first place – to purchase new underwear because the ones I bought at T.J.Maxx the week before were a nightmare. Inexplicably, I threw away all my old underwear before giving the new undies a try. Adding insult to injury, I wore a pair to play golf before knowing how wretched they were. Have you ever golfed 18 holes with an interminable wedgie? (Not to be confused with the club you use to hit out of the sand.) Talk about a handicap! Unfortunately, the T.J.Maxx people didn’t ask that question. Perhaps they aren’t interested in that level of detail.
Another good one is Hy-Vee. Up for grabs: a $500 gift card. My MO: Gush about their produce department, the variety of products they offer, and politely mention their prices are higher than ALDI’s. Do you think my survey comments were the impetus for Hy-Vee’s recent efforts to lower prices? I don’t think so either.
Hey, Home Depot people! I’m calling you out. You used to tempt me with a $5,000 gift card for my feedback. I faithfully completed every survey and my detail was extraordinary: Not one employee was to be found to assist me. I roamed the aisles searching in vain for anyone wearing an orange apron. Alas, with angst and foreboding, I departed, venturing southward to K&K Hardware where trusty, ubiquitous employees were available to assist me with my key duplication requirements. It occurs to me now the Home Depot people hate me.
Now they’re hitting me up with emails soliciting feedback. No gift card sweepstakes, no 25% off my next purchase offer, no anything. To which I proclaim, no deal Home Depot! I’m not doling out my pretentious opinions just willy-nilly. Hit me up when the $5 Gs are back because I need a ton of leaf bags this year.
I’ve been completing online surveys for several years and so far: bupkis. This raises several questions: Is anyone actually winning gift cards? (Good luck finding that information on the store website’s contest rules and regulations.) Is this all a ruse? (Probably.) Am I the laughingstock of the survey people? “Guys! That moron from Iowa sent in a survey whining about the stupid teriyaki sauce again! Get a clue, lady! You’re never going to win the gift card!”
While all of this may be true, I’ll keep filling out online surveys hoping one day I’ll win. In the meantime, hey ALDI, could you at least restock the stupid teriyaki sauce?
complicatedblessingsoab.com 