1 Top Ten Survey Best Practices Webinar Sponsored by SurveyGizmo Ed Halteman and Christian Vanek September 27, 2007

2 Christian Vanek Christian is a founding partner of 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.SurveyGizmo See SurveyGizmo.com to sign up for a Survey Gizmo account. Webinar Survey Experts Dr. Ed Halteman Ed has a master's degree in applied 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.Survey Design and Analysis Contact them For more information go to SurveyDNA.com or call

3 The Agenda! Webinar: Top-Ten Best Practices Welcome The Process of Building Surveys Top-Ten Best Practices Questions and Answers

4 Overview of Survey Process Design (1) Creation (7) Collection (1) Analysis/Reporting (1)

5 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #1: Start with your objectives, not questions

6 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. X Objective #3: To improve customer satisfaction. Think Actions/Decisions

7 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #1: Start with your objectives, not questions Questions – Overall how satisfied are you with Kwik Phone? Very satisfied, Satisfied, Neutral, Dissatisfied, Very dissatisfied, Uncertain Very satisfied SatisfiedNeutralDissatisfiedVery dissatisfied Don ’ t know / NA Timeliness in fulfilling requests Follow through on requests/issues Accessibility of Kwik Phone staff Kwik Phone equipment performance Kwik Phone Invoicing

8 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #2: Introduce Your Survey & How Long it Will Take

9 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #3: Include “Not Applicable” and “Don’t Know” (especially on required questions)

10 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #3: Include “Not Applicable” and “Don’t Know” How often do you get asked a question where you answer, “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure”? Yet, on surveys many just don’t 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, “ ‘Don’t 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 ‘don’t know’ be a possible answer?

11 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #4: Use clear and concise questions and options

12 VS ….

13 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #5: Nice-to-knows Don’t Count How often do you hear? –“It would be nice to know what are customers think about such and such....” or “I’d like to know...” –This usually comes up during question generation but can happen w/ objectives as well. “I’d like to know what customers think of our new product (feature) ideas.” The Easy Fix for “Nice-to know”s –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 else’s responsibility – a NTK!] –Question level: “How satisfied are you with Kwik Phone invoicing?”

14 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #6: Use branching and show/hide to shorten your survey’s appearance.

15 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #7: Test your Survey

16 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #8: After testing, do a “conceptual analysis” So you’ve followed 1-7 best practices and you have a great survey ready to go. STOP! Let’s go one step further. –Imagine you’ve 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.

17 Top-Ten Best Survey Practices Best Practice #9: Use your survey results as an incentive.

18 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 respondent’s 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

19 Summary – Top Ten Best Practices 1.Start with your objectives, not questions 2.Introduce Your Survey & How Long it Will Take 3.Include “Not Applicable” and “Don’t Know” 4.Use clear and concise questions and options 5.Nice-to-knows Don’t Count 6.Use branching and show/hide to shorten your survey’s appearance. 7.Test your survey. 8.After testing, do a “conceptual analysis” 9.Use your survey results as an incentive. 10.Sample whenever your target audience is greater than 500*