Community Engagement

​@KelliPolk sorry for a late response to your question.

There is no simple answer to this one, whilst I don’t work in government - survey fatigue is definitely a thing, and not just your surveys - but a combination of all the other surveys out there as well.

With questions like this, I like to flip it and explore what actions have been taken on the feedback you obtained?  The frequency of survey/value - is really only as useful as how quickly you can act.  Are you implementing substantial changes every month/quarter to warrant measuring it this quickly? 

Sample sizes, also depends on what decisions you are making and how statistically significant you need those changes in feedback to be.  Are you tracking a #, or just seeking to get feedback/comments - the later is extremely valuable even when the sample is low IMO.

I’d try having workshops internally first, work out what people have found useful (ask them how they used the data, what decisions did it drive) and then see what do they really want to know about customers, then before you ask the customer - ask them questions to stress test it, if customers rated this low, or said X - what would you do about it..

I’ve always found this very valuable, as people like the idea of surveys - but knowing how to use it, is another story, if you work that out - you can then frame up a much more useful program.

​@KelliPolk We continue to run a baseline survey on our information products, and response rates haven’t declined much. However, in the federal space, it’s getting harder/more cumbersome to put surveys through the approval process so it’s harder to ask specific questions.

That said, something that we have found is a real support of our efforts to provide easy-to-understand, credible health information to the many audiences that we serve. It very much helps the work that we do to be able to say, and show, that we are actively listening to the feedback we receive.

Great question ​@KelliPolk ! The real problem, IMHO, is simply survey fatigue. In a sense surveys are becoming a victim of their own success. My gut feeling tells me that #AI is going to enable us to shift from asking to knowing. But that is an opinion and not an answer to your question. 

Regarding survey frequency and sample size, statistics should be your friend. The minimum meaningful baseline should be a statistically significant one. In other words deemed sufficiently trustworthy, anything more and above that is cherry on the cake. 

On your point of other municipalities surveying less. Is their data any less insightful, meaningful or valuable? Like the note on statistics, what's needed is a clear, defined baseline of meaningfulness. Ultimately surveys are a mere means to an end. Do you feel the current surveys are meeting those ends, answering the questions and robust enough to translate into actionable insights that make sought after difference?   

​@SteveBelgraver The idea of shifting away from asking towards knowing is a powerful one. It fits with a best practice that we’ve embraced as much as possible, which is to only ask questions about things that we can’t find out through our digital analytics, so that survey questions become more about opinions and perceptions than about hard facts like page depth, current page, country of origin, etc.