Results You Can Act On! Writing Actionable Survey Items
In C1C’s February blog post, we discussed survey fatigue and how to avoid it. Among the tips were 1. take quick action on the results of the survey and 2. communicate the goal and outcome of the survey. In order to successfully follow these tips, the survey must be actionable. That is, based off the results you should know exactly what to do next to make improvements. Below are five questions to ask yourself while developing your survey items to ensure they lead to action.
Refrain from asking questions where the response to a negative result leads to ignoring or discounting the item or the participants.
Will results for this item be unclear? This lack of clarity can occur due to several different reasons, one being double-barreled questions. A question is double-barreled when it covers more than one issue but only allows for one answer. For example, “Rate how satisfied you are with our brand and website.” The results of this item won’t tell you if they are satisfied with the website or with the brand. Further, participants have to merge their feelings about both items which leads to inconsistent response patterns (e.g., one participant responds with neutral because he feels that the website is great but the brand is poor, while another participant likes the website but responds with very dissatisfied, because she thinks the brand is weak, etc.). We recommend you stick to one, clear concept per survey item.
Does this item just lead to more questions? Be as specific as possible. For example, “Rate how satisfied you are with our website.” This question is difficult to act on, because we don’t know what specifically about the website they are satisfied or dissatisfied with. We would recommend adding an item that asks participants to rate specific website elements. This will provide more specificity and ensure that the results guide action instead of leaving you with more questions.
Are there missing response options? Do your research on the appropriate options for your survey items. For example, let’s say you ask participants to rate their satisfaction with the website’s color scheme, load time, and mobile compatibility. Always ask yourself, “What else is missing?” You may realize you or your stakeholders also want to know about ease of navigation. We recommend you work with stakeholders or content experts to ensure you have included all of the appropriate options. In some cases, it may even make sense to build in an ‘other’ option. This allows participants to add an item you may have missed.
Can (or will) these results truly be acted on? For example, let’s say you ask participants to rate their satisfaction with the color scheme of the website. Can you actually change the color scheme? If not, it probably doesn’t make sense for participants to rate it. When you ask for feedback on items you have no desire to or cannot really change, this can lead to negative reactions from participants. They may feel that the survey was a waste of their time or that the company doesn’t actually care. These feelings can negatively affect future participation in surveys and trust in the company. We recommend you ask questions that can and will be taken seriously.
What will be done or concluded if the answer to this survey question is positive? What about negative? Consider a survey item about satisfaction with the organization’s brand. If a positive response leads to assurance in your branding selections, but a negative response leads to the conclusion that customers just don’t understand branding, that’s a problem. Refrain from asking questions where the response to a negative result leads to ignoring or discounting the item or the participants. We recommend that you discuss different result scenarios with leadership and stakeholders prior to sending out a survey. Doing this will help guide the survey development and hold people accountable once results roll in.
Asking yourself these five questions will help you write survey items you can act on! If you have any questions about developing actionable surveys feel free to reach out!