My Rating for the Arbitron Diaries Program: F

Last summer, I received a telemarketing phone call from Arbitron, the company that tracks consumers’ radio listening habits, much like Nielsen’s television diaries. Since I write about marketing for a living, I thought it would “behoove” me to get involved, so I agreed to fill out diaries for myself and my husband for 7 days.

Ironically, what I thought was going to be a simple, easy experience turned out to be the commitment from hell. After agreeing to record our listening habits, we received a letter telling us that the diaries would come shortly. They came about a week later. We also received another phone call about that time thanking me for agreeing to do the diaries and reminding me to fill them out. I didn’t feel that I needed the reminder, but okay, whatever.

That wasn’t so bad, but then, about two weeks before the diary period, the phone started ringing every other day with the same message: don’t forget to fill out the diaries. Once the official diary period started, the calls came daily. We also received another letter.

The constant calling got real old real fast. I got so sick and tired of their nagging that during one of the calls I threatened to rip up the diaries if I received one more call. They stopped calling after that.

But that wasn’t the end of it. About two weeks after the diary period, I started getting survey phone calls about radio listening habits. Either they were doing a survey or they had sold my data to someone who was. But I fixed them. Since I could identify the number every time it came in, I simply refused to answer the phone when they called. And boy did they call. They called at least 30 or 40 times over a period of four weeks. Sometimes they called in the morning and the evening on the same day. They called during the week and on the weekends. They were quite persistent. Eventually, however, their timeframe for doing the project ended and they had no choice but to give up on me.

In my opinion, this entire experience gets an F in customer service. It was overwhelmingly and unnecessarily intrusive, and I will never ever agree to do it again.

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