Getting the most from satisfaction – business performance and VFM

Acuity Director Denise Raine shares her top ten list of what to consider when planning a resident satisfaction survey:

Why are you carrying out this survey – what are you trying to achieve? Unless you have clear aims and objectives you will not know if you are collecting meaningful data that can be used effectively to ensure you are providing services or opportunities that are necessary, efficient and effective and demonstrate value for money.

Who are you surveying? Use appropriate styles, length, content and language.
Question order and response – have you got it right? – are you putting people off with sensitive or difficult or irrelevant questions at the very beginning?
Can use some probing questions.
Collect permission to re-contact about any issues raised in the survey or whether they want to take part in a focus group.
Open questions – can be very useful to collect rich qualitative information – how many “open” questions would be useful/appropriate?
Most residents are happy for the results to be non-anonymised – explain why you are asking the questions.
Survey length – too long or too short?
Make every question count.
Don’t ask things you already know (age, tenancy start date, etc.)
Equality and diversity – can everyone take part? Are there any groups who will be excluded? What can you do to make sure they have the opportunity to participate?

What form of contact do your residents prefer? – this often depends on the type of survey and your residents
Consider carefully all the options available and their effectiveness.
Be careful not to over-survey your residents

Ensure individuals have a very clear and unambiguous understanding of the purpose(s) for collecting the data and how it will be used.
Ensure consent is obtained from the individual for their data being collected, at the point of collection, and that they have the opportunity to opt out.
Keep abreast of any changes to current rules requiring a higher level of consent from individuals to process personal data and a requirement to record explicit evidence of that consent.

What options have you considered to boost responses?
Have you considered what it could mean if your residents don’t want to engage with you?

Will this be done in-house or by an external contractor?
If carried out internally how will you ensure accuracy and representativeness? For example, do you know how to access whether the data needs weighting?
What do you want in terms of outputs – top lines, sub-groups (demographic, geographic, diversity, tenure, bedroom size).

Let your residents and other stakeholders know what you have found – both good and bad – and what actions you are taking as a result
Fully analyse survey results, follow up research / focus groups where necessary.

Engaging with your customers will assist the organisation in responding effectively to changes in needs, behaviour patterns, expectations, perceptions, etc.

Acuity