The Customer Service Survey
How Not To Write a Survey
Wed - February 27, 2008 03:17 PM in
On the whole, I think the availability of easy-to-use survey tools is a good thing. But one unfortunate side-effect is a proliferation of really badly written surveys, like a gem I received today from one of our clients.
The survey is to evaluate a new online vendor management system this Fortune-500 company recently implemented, and it somehow manages to cram just about every boneheaded mistake into just ten questions.
I've obfuscated the name of the company since I don't want to embarrass anyone, but I think it's valuable to point out some of the mistakes so that others might read it and learn. At least I can hope. Here are screenshots of the survey: Page 1, Page 2, and Page 3.
Among the mistakes:
I should point out that the group which created this survey has absolutely nothing to do with the projects we work on for this client. Perhaps we should offer our services.
Posted by Peter Leppik
I've obfuscated the name of the company since I don't want to embarrass anyone, but I think it's valuable to point out some of the mistakes so that others might read it and learn. At least I can hope. Here are screenshots of the survey: Page 1, Page 2, and Page 3.
Among the mistakes:
- Several Yes/No questions allow the participant to select both Yes and No.
- Several implied questions, such as in questions 1 and 2. On question 1, for example, the participant is asked to skip the question if he didn't experience incompatibility issues, rather than actually answering the question "Did you experience incompatibility issues?" This implied question is confusing to the participant and makes the analysis much more difficult.
- Nonsensical choices to questions, such as in question 1: "If Yes, did you resolve the issues or did you have to submit the Offline (paper) application?" The choices are "Yes" and "No," which is not what the question is asking.
- Question 4 is a grid asking the participant to rate several items on a scale of "easy" to "difficult," but several of the items being rated are not "easy" or "difficult," for example, "Responsiveness" or "Amount of time it took to set up an account."
- Question 5 asks the participant how long the process took and provides several options, and the participant can select multiple options (such as both "4-7 days" and "over 15 days") which should be mutually exclusive.
- Question 6 asks a Yes/No question, but offers a Likert-scale of choices (along with an odd set of instructions).
I should point out that the group which created this survey has absolutely nothing to do with the projects we work on for this client. Perhaps we should offer our services.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 03:17 PM | | | | |