SurveyPaks
July 2003
Introduction
SurveyPaks are libraries of standardized survey resources written and updated by industry experts and available exclusively to users of Snap Survey Software. There are currently 9 SurveyPaks available for use by both private companies and public services in a wide range of fields including Health, Customer Satisfaction, Human Resources, UK Best Value Performance Indicators and Travel & Tourism. The surveys produced may be part of a benchmarking exercise or they may be used for ad-hoc research.
Each SurveyPak contains over 500 questions and a number of standardized, complete questionnaires specific to a particular theme. They can be used in two different ways:
- Through Snap’s reference window, the library of 500+ questions can be searched via the index tree or by specifying keyword searches. Once an appropriate question is identified it can then be dragged and dropped into a questionnaire being designed in Snap.
- As an alternative, the SurveyConstructor Wizard, new to Snap 7, provides facilities to create complete surveys from wizard templates found in each of the SurveyPaks. These standardized surveys are ready for publication in minutes compared with the hour or two that may have been required to create the same survey from scratch.
Original questions may easily be added to questionnaires composed using SurveyPaks, no matter which of the above methods was used in their construction.
In this article we concentrate on two SurveyPaks in particular: Customer Satisfaction and UK Best Value Performance Indicators. We describe how they may be used to facilitate research in many organizations, saving both time and money, and enriching the research process resulting in more reliable and valid data for end use.
Customer Satisfaction – International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
The 2003 Customer Satisfaction SurveyPak includes over 500 questions and 8 wizard questionnaire templates for conducting customer satisfaction surveys such as those for ISO:9000 accreditation.
Organizations carry out ISO surveys to ensure consistency and improvement of working practises. It is one of the most effective quality management systems in use in the business world. If well-designed, these surveys empower organizations with the ability to carry out benchmarking and satisfaction indexing year on year.
At its simplest, creating robust surveys using the Customer Satisfaction SurveyPak is a matter of choosing the most appropriate wizard survey from the list of 8 supplied. Most topics are covered including general customer satisfaction, personnel, standards, products, services, purchasing behaviour, delivery and service and communication.
Having chosen the most appropriate wizard survey, the next step is to decide which optional sections are to be included and which are to be excluded. This is where a balance needs to be drawn: keeping the questionnaire short will typically increase response rates but of course a longer questionnaire enables more data to be collected.
The next step is to complete the list of template fields. There are straightforward text settings such as company name, image file settings such as company logo, and there are longer text fields for specifying how the respondent should return the questionnaire once they have completed it.
The final steps involve choosing a publication method (paper, web, PDA or e-mail) and making some style design decisions. That’s it. Snap does the rest and builds a complete survey in seconds.
If required, extra questions can be added – either by creating totally new ones or by using the search and indexing facilities on the collection of individual questions from the SurveyPak. Once the design is finalized it is published in the appropriate form. All that is then required is the respondent data and the analysis of results can begin.
ISO surveys couldn’t be easier to construct when using Snap Survey Software with the Customer Satisfaction SurveyPak and wizard templates. Now, there are no excuses for organizations not to carry out customer satisfaction surveys to set standards and monitor all their working practices. In this way companies can ensure every aspect of customer requirements are met, thereby leading to greater commercial success.
UK Local Government Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPI)
The UK Central Government in London obligates local authorities to carry out surveys that measure local residents' levels of satisfaction with the aim of offering "best value". Each local authority is charged with returning survey data that enables specific performance indicators to be quantified.
Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI) surveys started in the UK in 2000/01 and are carried out every 3 years. Collection and collation of the returned data enables the Government to make national comparisons of satisfaction levels and attitudes within local authorities over standardized periods of time.
Because of the requirement to compare data across different time periods and between different local authorities, the BVPI surveys are published by the Government as a template that needs adapting by each issuing authority. Although constraints and restrictions are put on the questions that may be included, and the sample to interview, there is some flexibility on the data collection method and the ability to add questions specific to local issues.
Local authorities now have the technology to produce these surveys effortlessly using Snap Survey Software. The 2003 UK Best Value Performance Indicators SurveyPak includes a library of over 500 questions specific to these standard surveys set by the Central Government and wizard templates for all the standard Best Value surveys.
When using the SurveyConstructor wizard to deploy one of the surveys, all that is required is a response to each of the template fields requesting information such as authority name, address and contact telephone number. There is also a template field for an authority logo.
Although each template field may appear in a number of places in the questionnaire, it only needs to be entered once. Better still, since Snap maintains a memory of the template field settings from one run of the wizard to the next, standard fields (such as authority name) will only ever require entering once. Having been entered the first time they need never be entered again!
Even though the wizard outputs a standard questionnaire conforming to the appropriate rules and guidelines, additional questions may still be included. Any style changes required may also be made at this stage. Once complete, and the questionnaire has been published for the chosen medium – whether paper, for scanning, as a web survey or as a PDA survey – then the framework for data collection and analysis will already have been prepared.
Using Snap, the SurveyConstructor Wizard and the Best Value SurveyPak will dramatically reduce the amount of time and effort required by local authorities to set up Best Value surveys. This allows more time to be spent interpreting results and developing a deeper understanding of the local community and their needs.
Conclusion
Snap SurveyPaks offer simplicity and flexibility when designing a survey that could otherwise prove to be a time-consuming task.
The powerful search facilities built into each SurveyPak enable complex keyword searches to be entered and resolved. Questions conforming to the request are then presented in a list. But libraries of questions such as these are not only useful for fulfilling specific requirements in that way – they can also act as a prompt for questions that could be asked.
The wizard surveys especially save time by not only reducing the mechanical time to enter the individual questions but also reducing the valuable "thinking" time involved in arriving at a balanced design.