How to Know If a Questionnaire Is Successful?
Questionnaires can be useful tools in evaluating a number of different organizational initiatives, such as improvements in customer service or a recent marketing campaign. You can greatly increase your chances of conducting a useful survey that yields the type of data you want by taking the time to craft a specific and strategic questionnaire. Follow the process of writing a high quality questionnaire and then evaluate its effectiveness with some post-survey analysis.
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Instructions
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Determine the question you are trying to answer by summarizing your research objective with a single sentence. For example, imagine that you run a software company and want to determine the level of satisfaction with customer tech support offered by your call center staff versus your online chat staff. You might sum up this objective by asking: "Do customers feel they get better tech support by calling us or by using our online chat feature?" This is perhaps the most important step in crafting a successful questionnaire and receiving usable data.
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Ask an interesting question first to grab the customer's attention. Even if the question is not going to be a pivotal part of the questionnaire, ensure a greater response rate by piquing interest immediately and then moving to more complicated or technical questions later in the survey. Although the first question may be an exception, be sure that all questions are relevant and will help you to answer your guiding question.
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Craft closed-end questions for the majority of the survey. For example, if you want to know if customers like your call center staff, do not ask, "How do you feel about our phone representatives?" Open-ended questions leave room for ambiguous responses and increase the likelihood that customers will not complete the survey. Instead, ask yes or no questions or allow a range of predetermined answers, such as: "I am very satisfied," "I am somewhat satisfied" or "I am unsatisfied." Similarly, avoid leading questions that may influence the respondent or that may be unanswerable.
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Test the questionnaire by providing it to colleagues or friends. Ask for specific responses not only on the questions themselves, but the overall survey. Is it too long? Would the respondents complete the questionnaire if they weren't specifically asked by you? Would they be more willing to complete it if they received some sort of incentive, such as a discount on future business? These are all factors to consider when revising your document. Listen carefully to your test group and make revisions before offering it to customers.
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Distribute the questionnaire to customers with clear communication about when responses are needed. Set a deadline that provides ample time to complete the survey, but not so far into the future that you have to wait to start reviewing and summarizing responses. In most cases, if questionnaires are not completed shortly after receipt, they are unlikely to be completed at all.
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Compile the response data once you reach your deadline. Pay careful attention to the type and amount of responses. The higher the response rate, the more indicative the information will be of your customer's attitudes. You can now determine the success of the questionnaire by how well it answers your guiding question in several different ways. If crafted correctly, several of the survey questions should answer different aspects of the same question. If the results raise more questions or are inconclusive, you may need to rework the survey, solicit more feedback from testing groups and re-administer it to a separate group of customers.
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Tips & Warnings
Assume that only a small percentage of questionnaires will be returned. This may mean that you need to distribute several thousand documents in order to get a few hundred responses.
References
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