Keeping Surveys Short Is A Priority
Attention spans are short. It takes less than 30 seconds for a customer (or patient) to access content on a Web site to determine if it’s worthy of his or her time.
This is good enough reason that healthcare surveys should likewise be kept short and to the point. When you lose customer interest, you subsequently squander or skew survey results. This renders any preconceived intentions of your strategy useless. Decreasing the length and pages of your questions is paramount to having successful results.
With a survey, include brief instructions which indicate your purpose for the questionnaire. Patients like to know why this information is being asked of them and how it could potentially benefit either their level of care or service received at their choice of facility. When considering the details of your questionnaire’s strategy, make certain all questions are kept precise and clear, preventing any misconceptions or assumptions about demographics. Loosen the language — don’t talk like a doctor to your patients — and maintain a conversational tone. The devoted time to complete the entirety of the survey should not be longer than 20 minutes. Ten minutes would be optimal. Have variety in your questions to keep interest.
Surveys should also be conveniently accessible – either by mail, phone or internet. Give the consumer an ample opportunity to complete that coincides with his or her own schedule. When clients are bored, they will click any answer without thought — or worse, stop the survey without completion — which again, prompts skewed results and data.
Ask only one question at a time. One sentence should be enough for a response (two sentences, max if absolutely imperative). Do not ask for personal information unless it has something to do with completed data. If you need to ask these questions, and they apply to the purpose of the survey, save them for the end.
A few other things to consider:
Have a purpose! Will these questions increase your manner of care or customer service
Do not use bias.
Don’t gear or steer questions to a particular “right” or “wrong” answer.
Be objective, not subjective.
Don’t pre-consider your stats or study group.
Be consistent with structured questions and given answers.
Do not include options that are irrelevant.
Do not leave ALL questions to be open-ended. Some should have absolutes to gather exact data.
Multiple-choice answers are easiest to answer and analyze.
Eliminate unncessary questions that pertain to your purpose.
Do not lead the question taker into an answer.
Leave some opportunities open, but not too much that its interpretation is lost.
To finish, always include answers like “do not know” or “does not apply” (or ”none of the above,” if applicable, with an open-ended for “other”). This will allow more accurate feedback and response, allowing the participant to create his or her appropriate comments.
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