Blue
Ribbon Business
program planning & implementation
Ins and Outs of Conducting a Survey
Have you ever been brainstorming, come up with a
great idea for a new program, event, product or service and wanted more
confirmation that it would be successful? Have you ever had a new idea
suggested to you by a client or prospective client? Have you ever wondered
if your clients are really satisfied, or what areas you could improve, from
their point of view? Have you ever had a gut feeling about industry trends
but wanted to verify that feeling? How about your employees – do you have a
mechanism to find out if they have ideas about work environment improvement
and client service/product improvement?
If
you answered YES to any of these questions, you may want to consider
developing a survey to help you with decision making. Surveys can be great
tools and can provide you with good information. They can be large or small,
verbal, paper or electronic. Surveys can also be poorly designed and
subsequently yield low response rates and questionable data. A good survey
is one that gives you information that you can take action on. Let’s take a
look at how to create a survey that has value for you.
Survey Design
1)
The very first step is to figure out what your goal is, or
what you hope to achieve for conducting the survey. Often the purpose will
be to improve a program, offering or process. It may be to develop new
offerings or processes.
2)
This may sound obvious, but once you’ve determined your goal, decide who
you will survey. For example, if you think you want to start a new
riding program at your equestrian facility, your goal may be to enhance your
offerings for your current clients as well as to attract new clients. You
will survey people from both audiences for the greatest value for your
survey.
3)
Since you have now decided “what” and “who” you must decide “how.” The
format you choose for your survey is influenced by a variety of factors.
Formats include: in person, over the telephone, by mail, by email, on a
webpage, and directly by computer (such as at an expo or shopping mall).
Factors that come into play are cost, timeframe, sensitive questions,
education and literacy, internet use, and visual and audio requirements.
-
Surveys delivered in
person are the most expensive, followed by phone surveys. US mail comes in
third, with email and web pages being the least expensive.
-
Email and web pages are
the fastest method of delivery, followed by phone surveys. Mailing comes
in last here.
-
Sensitive questions are
most likely to be answered using direct computer interviewing. This is the
method that people feel that their personal identity is least likely to be
known. When questions have a highly sensitive or personal nature,
survey-takers want to remain anonymous.
-
Mail surveys are least
likely to be answered by illiterate and those that have lower levels of
education.
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Email and internet-based
surveys are cost effective, fast, can survey large populations, can
include color, pictures, videos and sound. But the results may be biased
or skewed if the audience that is being surveyed is not primarily email
and internet users
4)
Once you have identified your goal, audience, and survey method it is easier
to focus in. Your survey is likely to be more successful if you keep
in short and to the point. Think about how you feel when you are asked to
answer a survey. Your first reaction may be “How many questions do I have to
answer and/or how long will this take?” Keep in mind, however, that
willingness to participate in longer surveys may also relate to what is at
stake. If a survey-taker believes that survey results may influence policy
makers, they may be more willing to spend more time answering an in-depth
survey.
As
you focus in, work on keeping the questions simple and close-ended.
Close-ended questions give the respondents specific choices. These questions
are easier to analyze. Open-ended questions can provide more nuances to your
questions but are harder to collate and analyze. Open-ended questions also
offer a way to capture additional information in the responders own words.
5) Be
consistent in your rating scales. A rating scale offers a way to
measure the response. For example, a scale of 1-5 is used, with 1 being the
least favorable and 5 being the most favorable. Keep this the same
throughout the survey by not changing to a 1 – 3 scale and flipping the
order of favorability. That confuses the respondent. Confusion can lead to
respondents abandoning the survey.
6)
Design the survey so that it flows. Open with a brief introduction
that states the purpose of the survey and provides a solid reason for the
responder to participate. Be sure that you put your questions in a logical
order also. Start with broad questions first and funnel in to more specific
questions as the survey progresses.
7)
Test your survey before you implement it. Your choice of wording may be
clear to you but you may discover that it is not to responders. You will
also uncover any other survey design snafus. Try to test your survey on a
few people that represent your survey population. Then correct any wording
problems or other issues that have surfaced.
8) One way to
increase your response rate may be to provide an incentive for
responding to the
survey. For incentives, some mail surveys include a dollar with the survey.
Coupons for discounts at your business or a related business are also a
possibility. You can be creative in coming up with an incentive, but keep it
in line with the depth and nature of the survey.
Another method and is to send a reminder to complete the survey.
Reminders are not appropriate for every survey.
Where Do I Get My List of Contacts to Survey?
If
you are surveying your clients or employees you will already have your list
of contacts. If you are conducting a customer survey you will want to add
clients that are no longer with you. They may have
been dissatisfied and reluctant to tell you directly while they were with
you. Though they are no longer with you, they may have important information
about your business that you need to hear for improvement. In addition to
past clients, if you have a waiting list you may want to add these to your
survey, particularly if you are developing new products, services or events.
Depending on the nature of
your survey, you may want to partner with an association that you are a
member of. Or you may want to join forces with other businesses
(horse-related or non horse-related based on the survey goal) in your area.
This provides access to their list of contacts. Remember that the survey
results will also be available to those that you have partnered with as
well.
There are ways to buy
lists also. ReferenceUSA is a national leader; Mail Marketing, Inc. provides
horse-related lists; and Zoomerang offers online panels.
Survey Biases
It’s important to
understand what bias your survey exhibits because it is nearly impossible to
prepare and conduct a survey that has none. If you survey people during the
day, your population will primarily reflect non-working populations. If you
survey people online, your survey will reflect those who have computers and
access to the internet. If you survey your clients, the bias will tend
towards the positive because your clients are with you because they approve
of your business. Whether you are doing your own survey or using survey
data prepared by someone else, understanding the bias is crucial when
strategizing about actions to take based on this data.
Online Survey Resources
Two popular online survey
companies are Zoomerang.com and SurveyMonkey.com. Both of
these provide online surveys for up to 100
responses and a limited number of questions for free.
For survey sample size
calculators to figure out how many surveys you need to send –
www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm
www.ezsurvey.com/samplesize.html
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