'Feedback culture is doing my head in'

I'm a grateful person. I completely and totally appreciate all the perks modern life has given me.

It's easy and convenient to do, well, pretty much anything.

Back in the day before the internet and social media the best way to show your appreciation to a company for the goods or services they provided to you was to continue to purchase those goods and services.

Nothing says customer appreciation better than repeat business.

Except that's not enough anymore. Not even a little bit.

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These days businesses want your feedback as well.

Did we do well?

What did we do well?

What could we do better?

Would you recommend us to your family and friends?

Will you come back? Will you? WILL YOU?!?

Making a purchase these days is like being in a codependent relationship. No matter how much you spend with a particular business it is never enough.

They want more. And it is exhausting. It used to be just Uber Eats asking for immediate feedback, but now it's my toll provider, The Good Guys, Cotton On, Woolworths, everyone has joined the feedback party.

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I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way but feedback culture is doing my head in. I just want to make my purchases and move on with my life. If I like your business, I'll be back. If I don't, I won't.

Consider that my feedback and stop sending me questions and surveys and emails.

And it's getting worse.

These days I'm being asked for feedback just seconds after completing a purchase. And it's not just online shopping that is targeting customers in this way.

I was at Kathmandu a few weeks ago purchasing hiking pants and was asked to enter a number in a digital device to indicate my satisfaction with the service I had received, which had been excellent but still it was awkward to have to complete the survey in front of them.

And the option not to do it wasn't there.

Further complicating matters is my reluctance to give negative feedback, no matter how poor the service. This is often the case with Uber Eats, which we use at least once a week which means we have accumulated a lot of examples of good, bad and average service.

We've had ones who have asked us to come down to the front door to pick up the food to save them getting out of their car. There's the ones who pack the hot cinnamon donuts on top of the iced ones, causing the icing to melt. There's the ones who call me and have me talk them through the various stages of locating my front door.

Then there was the one who was clearly having a very bad night and threw the food down at my front door as I opened it and when I thanked her she mumbled something and swatted my "thank you" away with her hand.

There was the cold Italian food that we suspected didn't taste any better when it was hot.

Each Uber Eats driver and food establishment got a top rating from me.

I felt sorry for them!

Clearly they were having a bad night and their job isn't the easiest and my building can be difficult to navigate and I'm sure they didn't mean to melt the icing on my donuts and the crappy Italian place was clearly struggling for business during lockdown and their standards had fallen.

I even tipped them all.

What I would prefer is not to be asked at all by anyone what I think of their service, their app functionality, my "user experience" and then the very confronting: "Will you shop with us again??!!??"

That's tantamount to asking a Tinder date if they plan to ask you out again before the first one is even over.

Of course they'll say "yes" to your face, and ghost you later.

These companies don't even give me the opportunity to ghost them because the very act of making a purchase from them once results in a barrage of advertisements on my socials and every website I visit thereafter, as well as via email and direct text to my phone if those purchases have been made using an app on my phone and notifications have been enabled.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! There.

I want to go back to the olden days, 10 years ago, when if I liked a business, their goods and services I simply shopped there again. They could see they were doing well because they were making a profit.

If I didn't like the business and their goods and services I just didn't go back.

Their falling profits would signal a problem they would figure out, because that is their job to figure it out.

And I simply continue to live my life without having to help businesses improve. Last I checked I wasn't an owner or even a shareholder in any of them.

I'm just a bit tired of the whole feedback thing. I'm either into you, or I'm not. I don't want to have to explain myself.

I'm calling for an end to feedback culture before it gets even more out of control.

Share your story by emailing Jo Abi at jabi@nine.com.au.