Review Requests

 This week has been a productive one. I've completed many pages in my year-in-review scrapbook. I hosted two guest speakers for my York University TL AQ courses (thank you Jen Giffen and Joseph Jeffrey!), had a Zoom meeting, and finally got around to having my finger checked out on Friday after seeing the doctor about it in June. I had a really good experience at the facility that provided my ultrasound and x-ray. As I was about to leave, one of the technicians asked if I'd be willing to leave a Google Review for their place. I happily agreed. 

This was my review. 

This made me wonder a few things.

1) Why is it important for a medical establishment to get good online reviews? I looked after I posted mine and there were very divisive opinions about the service. They either received 5 out of 5 stars or 1 out of 5 stars. Do they have to compete for customers? 

2) I've been asked by one of the places I take my car in for work to fill in their company-specific survey, but it's always prefaced with instructions that anything less than a 10/10 means that they've failed, so please don't give any scores lower than 10. How is this kind of feedback helpful? How would one accurately be able to say that the service was satisfactory when the expectation is that is has to have the highest possible score? (This is why I haven't filled out any of these surveys, even when asked. They don't really want my true opinion; they just want high scores.)

3) Sometimes these reviews are used as "revenge". I know someone who worked at a business where someone was fired for legitimate reasons, and to retaliate, the person went on Google Reviews and left a scathing commentary, which conveniently left out the fact that the reviewer used to work for the company. How can readers know if the reviewers have an axe to grind with the company that has nothing to do with the service?

4) Do these reviews actually result in change? I know of someone else who has a boss that frets over the results of their Google Reviews, but it seems like it translates to short-term stress and not always to long-term transformations.

5) Is it bad to ignore reviews? This coming week is the final week of the July session of my York University AQs that I teach. I encourage all the participants to submit course evaluations, but I'll be honest - I haven't read mine in a while. Last year around this time, I wrote about how the really awful course evaluations stick in my head and lead me to forget almost all the positive ones. For my own well-being, I delay reading these forms. If there are any serious issues, hopefully my employer will alert me. They seem happy with my work, and our August sessions are busting at the seams! (However, there's still room - click this link if you want to register for a York University AQ course [not just mine!])

6) What if I substituted the word "review" with "assessment/evaluation"? Are my five questions still legitimate even in an educational context?

These are remarkably heavy thoughts for a sunny weekend in July. 

As for my finger, the ultrasound technician was able to pinpoint precisely where I was having the issue. I worried that the problem had just gone away with time and that I was wasting their time, but it looks like I've been using my hand in ways so that there's no pressure on the sensitive spot; the problem still persists.