Josh Richards "jrichard"

(Questions That Every Survey Should Ask)

Four out five times I'll just toss out those surveys that get printed on the receipts from retailers, restaurants, coffeehouses, etc. If I'm looking for a distraction (or remember that I stashed one in my wallet the next time I'm there while I'm standing around in line anyhow) and the freebie I get for doing it entices me, I'll do one.

It's pretty frustrating to be willing to provide feedback only to discover the survey is your main gripe about the establishment. Based on my survey experiences, one of the following queries should be appended to every survey any company ever does. They basically all boil down to: "Did this survey suck?"

Q: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the friendliness of this survey?

Q: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the length of this survey?

Q: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the clarity of this survey?

Q: On a scale of 1 to 5, would you be likely to take a survey like this every again under the same pretenses?

If it's a written, online, or in-person survey (difficult to do with an automated phone survey) they might even ask something like: Do you have any ideas about how we might make this survey better?

If I had a great experience otherwise, well, we can all spell i-r-o-n-y, right?

-jr