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Surveys can be a great tool to keeping up with customer needs. Contributor Pat McGrew offers some do’s and don’ts for constructing effective surveys that will give you the data you need to better serve your customers.
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About Pat McGrew
Pat is a well-known evangelist for inkjet productivity. At McGrew Group, she uses her decades technical and marketing experience to lead the industry toward optimized business processes and production workflows. She has helped companies to define their five-year plans, audited workflow processes, and developed sales team interventions and education programs. Pat is the Co-Author of 8 industry books, editor of A Guide to the Electronic Document Body of Knowledge, and a regular contributor to Inkjet Insight and WhatTheyThink.com.
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Discussion
By John Zarwan on Mar 02, 2022
Make sure the questions are on point -- do not mix things! (Real Example from a survey I took today: Q Has your income changed in the last year? It has decreased a lot and I have trouble meeting expenses. The problem with this question is if your income has decreased a lot but you don't have trouble meeting expenses... It's not the best example but I hope it makes the point.)
The very popular "net promoter score" can also be problematic. (How likely are you to recommend something. What if you would never recommend that particular category? When was the last time you recommended a paper clip brand? It's a great tool but only in some instances).
Designing good surveys so that the results are meaningful is difficult.
By Pat McGrew on Mar 02, 2022
John!
What an excellent and important point. Yes, if you ask vague questions or questions designed to lead to an answer, well... GIGO, right? (Garbage in Garbage Out for the uninitiated)
Ak questions to build knowledge, not build your Net Promoter Score. No, I'm not recommending a brand of paperclip, either!