I have been offered short surveys during checkout (i.e. POP: Point of Purchase) several times in the last few months at several retail stores. One such example is at Wal-Mart (okay, they could have been doing this for a while, but I don’t shop there frequently). The screen just asked one question: “Was the cashier friendly today?” I heard from someone else that they asked if the bathrooms were clean (must be a low incidence rate: how many people actually use the restroom in Wal-Mart?).

I think that it is a good idea to solicit feedback as close to the moment of the interaction that they’re trying to measure, but is it too close? The cashier must know that they’re being (formally) evaluated on the spot. I think the value of this particular survey may be to encourage the cashier to act nice since they know they’re being evaluated rather than truly measuring overall satisfaction or performance. As a former retail manager, trying to encourage employees to be “on” at all times with with customers can be a challenge.

Does anyone know how this data is used? Does it directly impact the employee (do they see their results)?