2007 Q1 Customer Survey Checklist
Often times surveys are done “on the fly” to try to get information currently unknown to management. Here’s a checklist that should be asked by any executive approving a survey project. Following this simple checklist can make your next survey more rewarding.
- What are the objectives of the survey, e.g. customer satisfaction, key buying decision factors, customer value, loyalty, etc?
- Do we know what we are going to do with the information when we get it?
- Are we planning to do surveys often enough to give us the kind of trend data we need?
- Do we know when it’s best to do surveying by mail, email or telephone?
- Are we working with accurate, up-to-date contact lists?
- Are we planning to pretest questionnaires?
- Have we been thorough in comparing the merits of outsourcing versus doing it inside?
- If using an outside resource, do they have the credentials, not only from a research perspective, but also from a business perspective, to ask the right questions and provide actionable interpretation of the results?
- Can we be assured of a statistically valid level of confidence in the results?
- Do we know how to reduce sample size and cut costs by getting a high response rate on surveys?
- Do we have the processes in place to validate and crosscheck the information we expect from the survey?
- Do we have the discipline to keep survey questionnaires to a reasonable length?
- Is the cost of the survey inconsequential compared to the information that will be received? Customer Survey Checklist