When you are looking to make changes to your organization, the first place you often turn is to your members. Understanding what they want and how they feel about potential changes helps you to determine if you are spending time and energy in the right place. However, the most difficult obstacle is often the process of surveying members and actually receiving a response.
So, how can you get members to welcome surveys and provide their valuable feedback?
Meet your members where they will respond
Push the survey to them online whether it is through email, your website, or social media. According to Survey Monkey, “people overwhelmingly prefer to complete a feedback survey online at a colossal 91% either through website submission (63%) or sending an email (28%). Meanwhile, only 3% of people said they prefer to send their survey responses via snail mail.” With that said, you know your members. If you have an older demographic, it will not hurt to provide the option of responding through direct mail.
Once you determine the best place to reach your members, it is important to create clear and explicit directions on how to complete the survey. Explain the intention behind the survey and what you are looking for out of their responses. List out how to proceed to the next question and how to submit the responses. You don’t want to lose people before they even get started.
Keep the survey short and sweet
When possible, try to limit the number of questions sent. Are they all necessary or can one or two be cut? If the platform you are using allows, you could also provide members with a bar or percentage that lets them know how much further they have to go. Another option would just be to have the whole survey viewable at once. These choices will ideally keep members motivated to finish out the survey.
Provide incentive
If all else fails, it never hurts to dangle a carrot in front of your participants. Incentivize members to complete the survey and provide them swag or discounts on membership or the upcoming conference.
Follow up after the survey
If you implement something based on survey results, let members know that is how it came to be. This will show members the value that they bring to the organization and might give them that final push to fill out future surveys.
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