I’ve been involved in a back and forth with a client around creating survey questions that measure the effectiveness of a team.\u00a0I was most concerned about nature and the quality of the questions that we would ask. \u00a0We all know the old saying “Garbage in. Garbage out.” \u00a0And this is certainly true as it relates to constructing good survey questions.<\/p>\n
QuestionPro already gives us many options and question types to choose from. \u00a0But if you’re not asking the right questions, you’re not going to get actionable results.<\/p>\n
The most basic reason we conduct surveys is to help us make decisions. \u00a0 In fact, surveys aren’t just used for marketing decisions. \u00a0They are often most useful for making improvements in our operations.<\/p>\n
How to Know If Your Question Will Yield Actionable Results?<\/strong><\/p>\n The best way to test your questions for good results is to literally run your survey internally as a test and ask people to answer the questions. \u00a0Then look at your results.<\/p>\n Gather a small team in the room and set your objective as reviewing the test results for specific action items.<\/p>\n For example:<\/p>\n “We received a score of 6.7 out of 10 as a response to “Overall, how would you rate the training you received?” \u00a0Our objective is to raise this score to an 8 out of 10. \u00a0What are some specific action items we could do to improve this score?”<\/p>\n Chances are your team may take in this information and come up with more questions such as:<\/p>\n If your group is tasked with coming up with specific changes to drive improvement, and they are asking these kinds of questions — then the original survey question is too broad.<\/p>\n The good news is that the questions you’re asking yourselves in order to come up with actions that will drive your score up are the key to creating more specific questions that will help you take action.<\/p>\n Focus on What Decision You’re Making And The Objectives<\/strong><\/p>\n What is the objective of your survey and what decisions will you make with the results? \u00a0Are you looking for ways to improve your training process and system so that your trainees retain more information? \u00a0 In that case, you can focus the question on your respondents’ ability to actually do a specific task.<\/p>\n With that in mind, you can create a more focused question such as:<\/p>\n “After completing the training, I can process an online order easily”<\/p>\n This question is focused on the area of online order processing. \u00a0If you get a low rating, your team will know to focus on that specific area for improvement.<\/p>\n Managing Survey Length<\/strong><\/p>\n The downside of focused questions is that they tend to proliferate and make your survey too long. \u00a0 This is why it’s critical to be clear about how you will use the survey to help you make decisions. \u00a0It’s worth the time and effort to discuss and come to an agreement on what decision you are making and what information you will need to make that decision. \u00a0That alone will eliminate those “nice to know” questions that yield interesting results, but really don’t help you make improvements.<\/p>\n Developing a Survey Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n If you’re using your survey results to make decisions, and you don’t want to overwhelm your respondents with a long survey. \u00a0The best thing to do is develop a survey plan.<\/p>\n 1.Identify the decision that you are making<\/p>\n 2.Identify the data you will need to support your decision<\/p>\n 3.Develop survey objectives around your decision<\/p>\n 4.Create ALL the questions that will give you the information that you need.<\/p>\n 5.Break those questions out into separate surveys that your respondents can take at different stages of the process.<\/p>\n Focusing your surveys on decisions and actionable steps that you can take will not only yield better results, it will make your team more efficient and your respondents more responsive because they can see their feedback in action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been involved in a back and forth with a client around creating survey questions that measure the effectiveness of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":16340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[203,187],"tags":[289,413,350,433],"yoast_head":"\n\n