Inavero Blog

Seth Godin’s 5 Tips to Successful Online Surveys

Seth Godin is one of my favorite business writers. He is clearly at the top of the “quantity” of ideas list within the business world, but what is rare to me is – he is also near the top of my list for “quality” of thought. He submitted a wholly digestible list of 5 guides to ensuring a successful online survey. Click here to check out the list (its short, entertaining, and pretty much spot-on). His first two points are crucial – essentially, that each question you ask is “expensive” in the time it takes your clients/employees to fill it out. Don’t ask unless you will do something with it. Think “need to know”, not “nice to know”. The second point is that each question you ask has the ability to change how the person is thinking. If you lead the respondent, don’t be surprised at getting the answer you lead them to. This can happen with the question itself, but it can also happen with scale selection, question placement and a whole host of other bias-inducing decisions.

Within the professional service environment, clients make a conscious decision about their willingness to participate in your client satisfaction survey. The equation, in my experience, is simply the ratio of perceived value (enhanced service, etc.) to the perceived amount of time spent (cost). I use the term perceived multiple times for a reason. The perception is truly reality here and there are things you can do to improve the perception of value (pre-survey description of the client program, follow-up letter describing what was learned, etc.) and the perception of time spent (our subject lines often include the actual number of questions, such as “two questions about your recent experience with us). If you have designed a brief survey, do everything in your power to get the benefit of that in your response rate.

Finally, the most important mistake that professional service firms make with their surveys is assuming they need to come up with 3 action items and implement them across the firm, and across multiple offices. While there may be a few “global” changes that come from survey findings, the most important step (often overlooked) is to get the information to the people who can change it. If Jane feels like she doesn’t get a quick enough response, Jane’s professional contact in the firm should a) know that, b) act on that, and c) be held accountable for improving Jane’s perception. It is that simple, it is that direct, and it is that important.