Surveys are for Buildings, Conversations are for People

Maybe I'm exaggerating a tad. I stand on solid ground when I say that we are often asked for feedback and then never given the opportunity to dig deeper into it and receive feedback ourselves. It's all well and good when things go well. Yet, I suspect that we'd be more interested in learning how we can make them better. Hard to do with surveys. Today at FC Expert blogs I talk about how Customer Surveys are Dead.

If survey are hypothetically dead, polls may not be. How do we do some polls today? We put a question out there to a community and collect what comes back. Then we take a look at how the data stacks, like in the Gallup poll I posted here on Media Use and Evaluation.

This is a form of feedback. If we participated in the poll, we can now see how it turned out. Notice how local newspapers and media are getting more daily attention than national news and news on the Internet is gaining a little bit in the sample. Now this is the sort of format I can really sink my teeth into. Then you can put the poll into context and add the narrative, the story. Like in this Gallup article on what's troubling Americans financially speaking.

Have you thought of a treatment of survey results that can make them more actionable? How do you use surveys?

Comments

[Ignacio]

As someone who does lots of marketing research (currently doing internal comm research), I see a lot of professionals and organizations appraoching research and surveys with a sort of passive perspective. In other words, they just set out to ask the standard "are you satisfied" sort of questions.

Of course, you have to asks those questions, but I always look at surveys as an opportunity to dig deeper into the "what else can we do for you?" perspective. Even when results are not very quantitative and representative, I always find value in the qualitative feedback given through open-ended questioning.

Also, I always try as much as possible to leverage results for communications. The company that I work for has had a negative rank when asked in employee surveys whether any action is actually taken from the surveys (!). So, my approach has been to use some of the results and publicize them along with tips and actions on how to improve. I think people respond to messages like, "only 60 % of employees trust their manager, and here are some tools for both staff and managers to help start a meaningful conversation and improve the relationship."

So, I definitely agree that survey results should be turned back around to audiences and be discussed about as much as possible along with tools to improve or address issues AND CELEBRATE THE GOOD THINGS.

Great post,
Ignacio

[Valeria Maltoni]

Ignacio:

At last, I get to spend some time with you here. I did not know about this aspect of your work and I'm liking what I read. Taking the time to appreciate and celebrate is important -- that can go a long way to humanize and connect. Yes, people will gladly spend the time when they can partake in learning about the results.

I like your approach! I may borrow it a little as in my job I also cover internal communications.