When you create a survey, focus on getting unbiased
results. If you don't you may end up with bad information,
like my hosts at a Caribbean resort.
Midway through our week at the resort we received an
invitation to a Meet-the-Manager event, and at the end of
this get-together, were asked to complete a guest
satisfaction survey. So far, so good.
But...
The people running the resort put on quite a party before
handing out the survey forms. They ushered us into their
most comfortable and attractive facility and served exotic
drinks. Next, the loud and cheerful music started, followed
by dance contests, and their profuse thanks for visiting
the resort.
Then, after a big build-up, the master of ceremonies
introduced the manager (or should I spell that with a
capital M, given the hype in the introduction?). He, in
turn, and with much hyperbole, introduced the department
managers. As each came triumphantly up to the manager's
side, the staff encouraged us to cheer loudly.
A bit more hype, and then we received the survey forms. As
for the manager and department heads, they vanished before
we could meet them. Too bad. I didn't get to complain about
the pillows that felt as comfortable as speed bumps on a
busy street.
Too bad, too, for the resort, which lost an opportunity to
respond to a customer complaint. But, then, all the
feedback they garnered that day meant little.
Sure, a cynic might say, management ended up with rosy
customer satisfaction results to show the owners or
shareholders. But, they didn't have good data about how
their guests really felt - in fact they had bad data -
which could mean a trip to the unemployment office one day.
Surveys, you see, are very sensitive creatures. You must
create a survey and administer it in such a way that you
prejudice respondents' views as little as possible.
When writing the questions, you must make them as neutral
as possible, and what's more, make the scoring as neutral
as possible. And, as I say, you'll want to administer the
survey in as neutral a way as possible, which rules out the
approach taken by our friends at the resort.
You'll find lots of resources on the Internet that help you
create a survey, with information on how to write good
questions, how to score the answers, and how to select
people to interview. If this sounds like a lot of work, it
certainly can be. But, there's a good reason to invest your
time and effort.
And it comes down to this: a flawed survey is worse than no
survey at all. If you base your decisions on data from a
bad survey, you will, by definition, make bad decisions.
And those bad decisions will undoubtedly cost you more time
or money than you saved by skimping on research and survey
design. The computer programmers grasped the essence of
when they said, "Garbage in, garbage out."
In summary, when you create a survey, focus on creating one
that is as unbiased as possible, recognizing that the
fairer the survey, the better the data, and the better the
data, the better the decisions you'll make.
----------------------------------------------------
Robert F. Abbott has taken surveys, created and
administered surveys, and even completed a graduate level
course on survey design and delivery. Now, read his article
about employee surveys at
http://www.employee-communication.com/employee-survey.html .
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