Is gaining accurate and useful insight into your customers, employees, or other audiences important to you? If so, surveys can be a very effective way of gathering actionable information - PROVIDED they are developed and administered correctly. Too often, however, people are dismayed to discover that their survey results yield little or no useful data. In addition to wasting precious resources, everyone ends up frustrated, including the survey participants. It doesn't have to be this way. Survey Says...: The Professionals' Guide to Great Surveys is a practical guide that addresses every aspect of developing, designing, and administering surveys that yield accurate, actionable results. The emphasis is on the "how to" because that's where the effectiveness of a survey is achieved. This book takes you through the five stages of the survey process: planning, designing, administering, analyzing, and reporting results and taking action. Each chapter contains an Insider Tip designed to help maximize the effectiveness of your survey process. You will learn how to: -Manage critical success factors -Select an appropriate survey expert -Write effective survey questions and response options -Increase the survey's accuracy -Choose an online survey vendor -Maximize your response rate -Determine the appropriate type of data analysis -Report results -Avoid the mistake of overlooking the one most critical step of every survey process While not rocket science, survey development and administration seldom is discussed or taught outside of select graduate level academic programs. Without this knowledge, people tend to make unnecessary mistakes that often leave them worse off than they were before they conducted the survey. Why go down that road when you easily can obtain dramatically better results by following the simple, time-tested tips and techniques contained in this book? The bottom line: the knowledge you gain from this book will boost the quality of your survey data and, as a result, your ability to take effective action to better serve your customers, manage your employees, and/or work with other groups.
About the Author: Dr. Pat Lynch is a consultant, coach, and speaker who helps successful executives and business owners optimize their business results by aligning people, programs, and processes with organizational goals. She is President of Business Alignment Strategies, Inc., a management consulting company in Long Beach, California. A former university professor, Pat earned her Ph.D. in personnel and employment relations (human resources, labor relations, organizational behavior), with a minor in employment law, following a career in the Finance and Treasury divisions of FedEx Corporation. Prior to that, she held positions including manager, social worker, and credit analyst. She also served as an arbitrator for the New York Stock Exchange. Her survey expertise, initially grounded in her graduate studies, was refined considerably through her work with recognized experts during her doctoral program, and has been refined over the years by assisting her own clients with their employee and customer survey needs. Pat is one of fewer than three dozen people worldwide who have been inducted into Alan Weiss's Million Dollar Consultant(R) Hall of Fame. She was recognized as being a human performance and productivity expert who has worked with highly effective results in public sector and other highly politicized environments. One little-known fact about Pat is that as of 2013 she has walked eight marathons and over a dozen half-marathons to raise money and awareness for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.