So what are some of the lessons LIFT has learned from Feedback Survey?
First and foremost, collecting meaningful feedback is an art as much as it is a science. We have gone through five different survey design changes. We have significantly improved how we collect feedback and we are certainly far from done with changes on this front. Changes entail everything from the actual survey vehicle (computer to iPad), question phrasing, more vigorous training to improve the response rate, increasing the variety of questions, ensuring privacy during surveys, collecting rigorous qualitative data to complement the survey data, pre-testing new versions of questionnaires, and more.
Second, feedback and improvement science are a match made in heaven. We are big fans of learning as you go – and what better way to do that than with Member feedback front and center. We are still interested in assessing the quality of relationships and how those correlate to Member success – as well as better understanding how ‘social’ and ‘personal’ foundations relate to Member success. But we’re particularly excited about how we can make Member voices a central part of small and large changes afoot at LIFT.
To date, we’ve asked Members about what matters most to them (challenging our own assumptions) and what types of practical logistics would make accessing LIFT’s services easier (i.e., phone meetings). Small changes, on the other hand, may include Member input days and times that they prefer to come to a LIFT resource center. We believe these micro-changes can really improve how we serve our Members and we’re excited to explore more opportunities as we tweak our practices based on feedback.
Third, high ratings don’t always leave you with that warm, fuzzy feeling. A survey that tells you most Members feel they have a strong relationship with LIFT feels nice, but it isn’t necessarily useful for identifying opportunities to improve service delivery. We paradoxically grapple with having really high ratings from Members on the relationship and service delivery survey sections. In particular, when seeking out correlations between Member successes and higher ratings, it’s hard to tease out strong correlations when there is little variation on Member ratings.
These are just the highlights of some lessons from our last two years. We haven’t yet mastered it and we hope that sharing our trials and tribulations – along with what has worked – will help others from reinventing the wheel. And maybe inspire others to jump on the feedback bandwagon!
This is part two of our blog series on LIFT’s Feedback Survey.
You can read part one on our blog.