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Sunday, August 21, 2011

Paradoxical Text Message from China Mobile

Yesterday, I called China Mobile's customer service using their 10086 hotline number.  They were very helpful in answering my question about international roaming.  Shortly after the call concluded I received a text message asking for feedback.

As a prelude, I'll just say that there are many challenges to writing good survey questions.  For example, small changes in wording can mean big differences in how people respond and how the results can be interpreted. 

However, in the case of the text message sent by China Mobile the shortcomings are relatively clear.  There are several things I could comment on but it was that last sentence that caused a moment of pause and my friend to wonder why I was laughing.  I share the text message here "as is" [grammar mistakes not mine]:
Premiere Service, Only For You. Dear Customer, please rate your satisfaction with our 10086 hotline service: 1. reply 1 for "Strongly Agree" 2. reply 2 for "Agree" 3. reply 3 for "Passable" 4. reply 4 for "Disagree" 5. reply 5 for "Strongly Disagree". If you refuse to response this message, please reply with "0".
I'd be interested to know if any Chinese equivalent is also so wonderfully paradoxical.  Though, there might not be one since they say this "Premier Service" is only for me.  Maybe I should just feel special.

In case you're curious, I decided not to respond.  Although I was tempted reply with "6".

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