Tom Goodwin: Treat data like a friend down the pub not an idol to pray to

Too many marketers are asking for data that’s easy to measure and KPIs that are simple to track, rather than really listening to customers and understanding their wants and needs.

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I’m pretty sure if I sneeze near a bank today I’ll soon get a text message asking me to rate the bank for sneezeworthyness; or if I take out money from an ATM, I’ll soon receive an email asking me how my ATM experience was.

We are near constantly being asked how the coffee was, what the checkout was like, how well the comb met our satisfaction. If hotels were as keen to actually meet my needs as get me to rate my experience with them, I’d be in heaven.

The price we pay for any form of interaction with a brand today is a satisfaction survey twatishly sent on Twitter. And brands hit the most valuable people hardest. The more you fly with an airline the more they ask you how it was and the happier they are to waste your time on their admin. I get cheery emails asking about my vacation in Denver when I fly there each month for work meetings. Is this really that hard? We’ve fallen out of love with empathy because we want the data.

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