Filed in Management

Because it's not just about writing clear questions or creating charts, it's about how surveys serve your organization.

Ask about the small stuff: I recently had lunch with a fellow consultant who focuses on employee surveys. Contrary to what you might expect in the grand scheme of employer/staff relations, he spends much of his time getting executives to pay attention to "small" problems....; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on August 24, 2007 | Last updated May 19, 2008; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Questionnaires; TAGS: Customer satisfaction | Developing surveys | Employee surveys
Assembling a customer satisfaction picture: Most everyone wants to measure (and improve) customer satisfaction, but how? First and foremost, if your organization is new to surveys and doing this in-house, start simple! The goal of any survey is better information for decision-making, and a modest...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on March 7, 2008 | Last updated May 18, 2008; COMMENTS: 1; CATEGORIES: Management | Questionnaires; TAGS: Benchmarks & trending | Customer satisfaction | Developing surveys | Index metrics | Service quality
Balancing topics in your questionnaires: A client working on a project for a non-profit recently sent me two questionnaires: Version 1 Written by my client, and primarily driven by their contact, the CEO. The survey focused on evaluating the organization as a whole, though a...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on November 9, 2007 | Last updated May 18, 2008; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Questionnaires; TAGS: Developing surveys
Can usability be worth $4/form submission?: Recently I decided it was. People generally agree investing in usability for Websites and Web applications is a “good idea” when it comes to retaining visitors and users—or in my specialty, survey respondents. The challenge is assigning a value to...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on March 11, 2009 | Last updated March 11, 2009; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Questionnaires; TAGS: Usability | Web surveys
Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists: by Joel Best

While a fascinating read for all of us, this is most applicable if you're combining secondary research with your surveys. You'll never look at "facts" the same way again.

Amazon; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Books | Management | Reporting; TAGS: Biased research | Market research | Public opinion polls | Secondary research | Statistics
Preventive care for bad PR: It's become accepted knowledge that people talk more about bad service experiences than good ones. That extra energy people put into spreading the word was bad enough when they talked to friends and family. Now that energy is going elsewhere,...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on July 30, 2006 | Last updated April 25, 2008; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management; TAGS: Customer satisfaction | Marketing | Service quality
Rule #1: Surveys are about information, not justification: There are three possibilities when you have a theory (or better yet, your boss or client has a theory) about survey results and start reviewing it in the data: You were right! All is well in the universe, the sun...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on January 20, 2009 | Last updated October 5, 2009; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Reporting; TAGS: Ann's Rules | Biased research | Ethics
Rule #2: Wear the respondent's shoes—it's a big payback: As much as I'm a general advocate for respondents, I know it can be a challenge when they're an amorphous group and your manager or client is an immediate voice. But, there are two very pragmatic reasons for putting yourself...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on October 5, 2009 | Last updated October 5, 2009; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Questionnaires | Respondents; TAGS: Ann's Rules | Response rates | Risk | Scales | Writing questions
Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing: by Harry Beckwith

When you want to broaden your perspective, this will help you understand how customer and employee satisfaction mixes with and reinforces other marketing efforts. While the author focuses on services, it's useful in any industry—we're all competing on intangibles these days.

Amazon; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Books | Management; TAGS: Marketing | Service quality
Six questions to ask any statistic—before you make that business decision: Apart from being such lovely sound bytes, numbers have an apparent precision, which is why we often give them more weight than they deserve. And these days, we’re all getting hit with one alarming statistic after another, so it’s a...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on February 24, 2006 | Last updated February 3, 2009; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Reporting; TAGS: Market research | Risk | Secondary research | Statistics
Starting interviews on the wrong foot: In addition to my work on surveys, I'm also Chapter Leader of DigitalEve Seattle"http://digitaleveseattle.org/, an association which supports women in technology. We have an e-mail discussion list, and it's been quite lively the past few days talking about gender assumptions...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on July 8, 2006 | Last updated April 25, 2008; COMMENTS: 1; CATEGORIES: Management; TAGS: Personal interviews | Telephone surveys
The joy of a Web developer on call: One of the great things about the Web is that almost any functionality is possible—it's just a small matter of programming (and budget and time and compromises). Sometimes you can imagine a widget which will make your respondent's or visitor's...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on August 27, 2007 | Last updated April 22, 2008; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Technology; TAGS: Web surveys
Useful research or marketing games?: I was in my car dealership the other day, and posted behind my service representative was a copy of their satisfaction survey. Naturally I couldn't make out every line from 6 feet away, but their point came across loud and...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on March 13, 2006 | Last updated April 25, 2008; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management; TAGS: Biased research | Customer satisfaction | Marketing | Service quality
Want to write better surveys?: Answer every one you can. When I spot a "Take our survey" link on a Web site or feedback URL on a store receipt, I generally answer the questionnaire. Sometimes it's a smooth, well orchestrated experience. Occasionally I find myself...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on August 29, 2006 | Last updated April 28, 2008; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Questionnaires; TAGS: Developing surveys | Scales | Testing | Usability | Writing questions
Web surveys: Your server or theirs?: Just because you have a Web server doesn't mean it's the best choice for running your Web surveys. While your own box has the advantage of full control, it also has some drawbacks. This doesn't mean you have to go...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on October 20, 2006 | Last updated May 19, 2008; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Technology; TAGS: Project management | Survey hosting | Web surveys
What's your executive dashboard hiding?: In our sound byte culture we love condensed statistics, magic values which will let us know how many customers will buy again or whether employees are engaged in their work—all at an easily compared glance. While summary information such as...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on May 27, 2006 | Last updated May 18, 2008; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Reporting; TAGS: Benchmarks & trending | Index metrics | Statistics
When surveys are too adaptive: One of the strengths of Web, CATI and CAPI surveys is their adaptability. We can create a questionnaire which tailors itself in obvious and hidden ways to a respondent's answers. While in a sense the respondent is "driving" this process,...; Read Article; BY: Ann Ray on June 8, 2006 | Last updated April 28, 2008; COMMENTS: 0; CATEGORIES: Management | Questionnaires | Technology; TAGS: CAPI & CATI | Data cleaning | Developing surveys | Open-ended questions | Postcoding | Web surveys