Your organization wants to know more about its audience and its customers – what organization doesn’t want to know more about those they serve? However, most organizations feel like the only way to received feedback is through surveys.
Surveys are a great way to receive a 30,000 foot view of what your audiences think of your organization, but they don’t give you the in-depth information you really need to know.
Problem #1: Surveys don’t delve deep enough.There’s nothing inherently wrong with surveys as long as you know what you’re getting with the results. Surveys provide you with a broad view of your organization, a summary of what the respondents feel about the different questions asked. Surveys provide a general view, but they can’t provide you with truly detailed, qualitative feedback to guide your organization’s future planning.
For example, a survey might tell you that respondents give your organization a “Very Good” or even an “Excellent” rating, but a survey can’t tell you why your respondents feel that way. Surveys don’t ask the follow-up questions.
Problem #2: Negative feedback isn’t always bad, and surveys often miss it.No one enjoys being criticized or hearing negative feedback, however the only way for an organization to really improve is to hear what the respondents feel the organization isn’t doing right so the organization can work to change what isn’t working.
New survey techniques such as bubble surveys which allow only the “best” or most-mentioned ideas to float to the top give your organization good ideas. However, this approach can miss vital feedback because the best ideas don’t account for constructive criticism that might not be the most popular perspective.
Problem #3: Surveys often appeal to only those who are fully engaged.How many times has an organization emailed you asking you to participate in a survey? How many times have you actually participated?
Even when people truly love an organization, they often won’t participate in a survey simply because they don’t have the time at that moment or they just don’t want to take a survey. People who don’t like taking surveys offer incredibly important feedback, but your survey might not be reaching them.
Often, these people are representative of wide swaths of groups in your audience. Surveys can miss entire perspectives while, at the same time, skewing other viewpoints by having too many respondents participating from a specific group.
The Solution: How do you delve deeper?In addition to having edTactics conduct your organization’s surveys for a broad view, we recommend using our Key Stakeholder Interview Process to provides in-depth, qualitative analysis of your audiences.
edTactics’ Key Stakeholder Interview Process uses multiple steps to ensure your organization receives in-depth information from helping identify your key stakeholders, interviewing them, and developing methods to share the results with your leadership and audiences.
In addition, the Key Stakeholder Interview Process can help you identify ways to reach your audience through strategic communication plans which edTactics can help your organization develop and implement.
Let edTactics help you learn more about your audiences. edTactics can help you identify and reach your audience using surveys, the Key Stakeholder Interview Process, and through strategic communication strategies. edTactics offers free consultations where our experts can discuss your organization and what you want for its future. Send us an email or give us a call at (800) 983-8408 to learn how we can help you become more effective at communicating with your audience!
edTactics will provide you with our professional experience and expertise so you can focus on your organization.
Sincerely,
Art Edgerly & Eric Jacobson
Co-Founders of edTactics
Call us at (800) 983-8408
Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/edTactics
Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/edTactics
Subscribe to have our blogs emailed directly to you by clicking this link! You can unsubscribe at any time and your email address will not be shared.