Top Ten Survey Best Practices Webinar

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Top Ten Survey Best PracticesWebinar

• Sponsored by SurveyGizmo
• Ed Halteman and Christian Vanek
• September 27, 2007

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Webinar Survey Experts
Christian Vanek Christian is a founding partner o
f SurveyGizmo and the lead software engineer. He
comes from an 11-year consulting background
focusing on marketing and content management
tools. Christian is based out of Cambridge, MA.
See SurveyGizmo.com to sign up for a Survey Gizm
o account. 
Dr. Ed Halteman Ed has a master's degree in appli
ed mathematics, and a Ph.D. in statistics, and he
has specialized in survey design for over 10
years. Ed currently heads Survey Design and
Analysis founded in January 2003 and is available
for comprehensive survey design services. Contact
them for help getting more out of your next
survey. For more information go to SurveyDNA.c
om or call 303-818-3679.
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Webinar Top-Ten Best Practices
The Agenda!    

• Welcome
• The Process of Building Surveys
• Top-Ten Best Practices
• Questions and Answers

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Overview of Survey Process
Design (1)
Creation (7)
Collection (1)
Analysis/Reporting (1)
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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 1
• Start with your objectives, not questions

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 1 Start with your objectives, not
  questions

• Examples Kwik Phone Telephone Company services
  small to medium-sized businesses.
  
• Objective 1 To monitor customer satisfaction so
  that identify improvement opportunities quickly
  to maintain our customer base.
  
• Objective 2 To decide where to focus our
  limited improvement resources.
  
• XObjective 3 To improve customer satisfaction.
• Think Actions/Decisions

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 1 Start with your objectives, not
  questions

Questions Overall how satisfied are you with K
wik Phone? Very satisfied, Satisfied, Neutral,
Dissatisfied, Very dissatisfied, Uncertain
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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 2
• Introduce Your Survey How Long it Will Take

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 3
• Include Not Applicable and Dont Know
• (especially on required questions)

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 3 Include Not Applicable and
  Dont Know

• How often do you get asked a question where you
  answer, I dont know or Im not sure? Yet, on
  surveys many just dont think to include them.
  
• The Reason? They are focused on their
  perspective (I want an answer) and not that of
  the respondent!
  
• What about the argument, Dont know is a cop
  out I want to force them to think about it and
  give me an opinion!
  
• Forcing respondents contaminates your good
  data.
  
• It creates lack of closure which keeps
  respondents distracted on subsequent questions.
  
• Method For all questions ask yourself, Will
  this be applicable to everyone? How would I
  answer it? Could dont know be a possible
  answer?

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 4
• Use clear and concise questions
• and options

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VS.
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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 5 Nice-to-knows Dont Count
• How often do you hear?
• It would be nice to know what are customers
  think about such and such. . . . or Id like
  to know . . .
  
• This usually comes up during question generation
  but can happen w/ objectives as well. Id like
  to know what customers think of our new product
  (feature) ideas.
• The Easy Fix for Nice-to knows
• Ask What actions/decisions will it drive?
• Example
• Objective level What action will it drive? None,
  our product is already in development! Invoicing
  is someone elses responsibility a NTK!
  
• Question level How satisfied are you with Kwik
  Phone invoicing?
  

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 6
• Use branching and show/hide to shorten your
  surveys appearance.

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 7
• Test your Survey

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 8 After testing, do a conceptual
  analysis
  
• So youve followed 1-7 best practices and you
  have a great survey ready to go.
  
• STOP! Lets go one step further.
• Imagine youve executed the survey and you got
  date back.
  
• Think of what the data might look like.
• Actually make up some numbers, take them for a
  spin.
  
• Now what will I do if these were my results?
• Will it allow me to meet my objective (s)?
• Do I need all of this information? Or are some
  just NTK?
  
• Just thinking about this will stir up ideas about
  how ready your survey is.
  

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 9
• Use your survey results as an incentive.

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Top-Ten Best Survey Practices

• Best Practice 10 Sample whenever your target
  audience is greater than 500
  
• roughly
• Benefits of sampling
• Better accuracy
• Shows respect for respondents time
• Builds good will with customers
• Saves time and money
• Consider
• National Polling
• Remember you never get everyone to respond.
• What action/decision are you trying to make
• Exceptions
• Accuracy needs for breakouts
• Customer touchpoint

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Summary Top Ten Best Practices

• Start with your objectives, not questions
• Introduce Your Survey How Long it Will Take
• Include Not Applicable and Dont Know
• Use clear and concise questions and options
• Nice-to-knows Dont Count
• Use branching and show/hide to shorten your
  surveys appearance.
  
• Test your survey.
• After testing, do a conceptual analysis
• Use your survey results as an incentive.
• Sample whenever your target audience is greater
  than 500