Feedback is an invaluable resource for brands. Instead of relying on their own perceptions, it gives a concrete sense of how the company is actually performing. So it’s no wonder that, with the advent of cheap and easy survey tools and social media, many companies are increasingly reaching out to their customers to find out what they’re doing well, and what needs to be improved. It’s an honest approach to getting better, and not taking advantage might be a wasted opportunity.

However, because it’s easier than ever to collect feedback, it seems that many companies are overdoing it. So much so, that it has the potential to annoy the very people companies are trying to please. As our latest infographic illustrates, customers are starting to show signs of “feedback fatigue.” Respondents to a recent survey (there must be a good joke in there somewhere) claimed that surveys are too long, too personal, and inconvenient. Plus companies are asking customers to fill them out more than ever.

At Zendesk, we’re big fans of customer feedback because it helps us improve. For our customers, we offer the Zendesk Benchmark, which helps them see how they stack up against industry peers or even similar sized companies. Rather than ask customers a series of tiresome questions or asking to rank various components of Zendesk on a scale of 1 – 10, when a ticket is closed, we simply ask if the solution was helpful. There are plenty of other metrics that go into the benchmark, but the customer is only asked to respond to a yes or no question.