How am I doing?

Posted January 26, 2009

You stagger off of a crowded jet into the world's largest airport — the sprawling creation of British architect Norman Foster in Beijing. From the air, the airport is designed to look like a dragon. Inside, its high roof is ablaze with the reds and golds of imperial China.

Whatever. It's a fine airport, but you have to clear customs after 14 hours in coach. There is a huge line of people in front of you and unsmiling communist bureaucrats grudgingly inspecting their passports.

Except that suddenly more officials appear — and they are smiling. And they are not acting like bureaucrats at all. They greet each passenger in their own language when they can. They have good technology — scan the passport and in you go. The lines move quickly.

Our 12 year old spotted what may be a critical part of their success. At each window sits a small feedback device that seems to ask "how am I doing?". You press one of four buttons: big green smile on the left, proceeding to small green smile, small red frown, or big red frown. That's it (for me anyway, since I don't read Chinese).

I would guess that a passport control official in Beijing might inspect 500 passports a day. If half of those folks give their feedback, then at the end of each month, 5,000 people will have given each official a quick bit of feedback. At the end of six months, I guarantee that you will see meaningful variations in how happy incoming visitors are with the first official to greet them. (I'd bet that there are none of these devices at the new Beijing train station, where an estimated 40% of Chinese are traveling to see family for New Years. which starts tonight. People jam into trains, as Jamie documents this in a cool slide show from the new Beijing train station here).

Do the data correspond with smiles? With efficiency? With "Thank You"? Or do passengers favor a smile from a cute faces (it cannot possibly hurt your score to be cute and smile). Or maybe (and this affected me) you are so happy to be asked your opinion of the service you smile, give the big green button a couple of smacks, and go on your way.

If so, the device could be adding value without collecting any actual data at all.