History shows that if you survey your residents and do nothing to promote the survey you will get around 30% back. That’s kind of low. Here is a list of things you can do to maximize participation in your survey. Our clients who have used a combination of these techniques have gotten participation rates as high as 100% at individual communities.
What you can do to maximize participation in your resident survey:
Communicate
- Let residents know the survey is coming, that their feedback is valued, and that you intend to make positive change based on the results.
- Put up posters or banners to advertise the survey before and during the survey administration period.
- Provide daily reminders to residents to complete their survey using natural touch points, for instance during activities, over the intercom, or in the newsletter.
- Utilize your resident council to encourage residents to complete their survey.
- Make sure family members know if the resident needs help completing their survey; or just send the survey directly to the family member.
Make It Fun
- Have a kickoff party on the day of survey launch.
- Offer a small token of appreciation to those who complete their survey.
- Have daily raffles and/or one big raffle for those who complete their survey.
- Put up a temperature gauge at the front desk and chart the percentage of residents who complete their survey. Make the participation goal 100%.
- Have all team members remind residents that their feedback is important. One client had team members wear yellow smiley face pins that replaced the mouth of the smiley face with the word “survey” curved into a smile.
Do Something Meaningful With The Results
I’m listing this one last for linear purposes, but it is by far the most important thing you can do to motivate residents to participate in future surveys. One surefire way to take the wind out of a resident’s sail is to do nothing after the survey results are in. Not acting on the results sends a message that you don’t care.
- Get residents together and share the results of the survey.
- Celebrate strengths first and talk about improvements that were made based on last year’s survey.
- Share your improvement plans for this year and ask for help clarifying their specific concerns and ideas for improvements.
- Follow through on improvement plans!
What does your community do that works? Share your ideas in the comment box below.
Sensight Surveys offers communication templates, advertising artwork, and an improvement guide with steps and tools for sharing results and writing improvement plans. Contact Lynn for more information at 630-237-4138 or lynn@sensightsurveys.com.