Reviews... some comments from the other side...

[Ray]

Our company had quite the opposite problem. We do annual reviews and surprise surveys of our internal operations but we discovered that no one was filling them out truthfully because they were *not* anonymous. Given the current atmosphere of mass layoffs and firings without cause (Ever read your employment agreeement?) it is no surprise that people did not want anything negative associated with their name in regards to company operations.

Unfortunately, this creates the same problem being discussed here. I have also dealt with companies which sometimes deliver lousy service, but overall I would not want to damage my relationship with these companies by airing my dissatisfaction without the cloak of anonymity.

So, either way you go, there will be problems and there will always be that one individual that will be extremely dissatisfied and will let the world know about it. However, as more surveys are filled out and if the company in question is truly deserving of higher ratings, these one-off surveys from dissatisfied folks will have less of an impact.

Sometimes though, no matter how stellar the customer service is, some people will never be happy.

[Don]

In my view, a survey is a way to compare companies with similar services, NOT a place to attack a vendor, no matter how justified.
The correct forum for conflict resolution is direct communication.
I am a little suprised to hear of such adverse comment about Enrico's company, as I have been dealing with them for quite a while now, and despite showing my ignorance and lack of knowledge on more than one occasion, I have always been met with propmt, friendly and patient replies to my questions.
Also suggestions as to what I would like to see included in the software have always been met with a meaningful reply, and if the item is very low on the development list, then I am told the truth, not led up the garden path.
Unfortunately, there will always be the few that will never be satisfied, no matter haw hard you try.
Enrico, you don't need to change anything in the way that you conduct your business and deal with your customers, both the product and the service are simply superb.
Don

[Ray]

"As an example; display the current results for six months or one year, then delete and start over. Although I prefer the e-bay method, I'll check to see if the program can be modified to do that."


Matt:
I know you guys are using PHP and I believe a MySQL backend. You should be able to modify the SQL code to pull survey results only from the previous X months.

Something like the code below that only returns results from the last year: You'd just need to identify which procedure in the database is in charge of returning survey results to the website pages and just add or modify the WHERE clause: (No need to delete data... old data just won't be displayed)

SELECT
col1, col2, col3, YEAR(DateSubmitted) AS year_submitted
FROM SurveyEntries
WHERE
DateSubmitted > = DATEADD(YEAR, -1, GETDATE())

[Rodney]

Watch out Ray, Matt is watching your ability to program in Sql.

I agree that some will never be satisfied. In my dealings with PM over the years has been simply put "Outstanding" I can ask for a new code, when I blow my system away and reformat, and I am always amazed that Katy takes less than 10 minutes to respond with a new code. And really, any company I have dealt with lately has met or exceeded my expectations. I just infuriates me when someone attacks or has what appears to the subject to be a very important issue, but because the statement is not always clear, it causes grief, and to boot, cannot be fixed. Sure is a sad thing. So I hereby make my new years resolution to treat each person I meet this year with utmost respect and civility.

[Matt Olieman]

Rodney is right.......

I DO like the E-Bay method, and I like the ability to purge the database with the ability to redo the survey.

Ray, Thank you I'll have to check with my friends at Chumpsoft and see what they can do.

[Ray]

I think you guys are using a pre-5.0 version of MySQL, which would mean that all of the SQL code is in-line with your PHP code. So, the same place where you make modifications to your website is also where you'd modify the SQL.