I am a bit of a survey expert…I used to manage the Air Force’s Quality of Life (QoL) Survey for Ramstein Air Base and then USAFE. As a consultant with Booz Allen, I worked closely with employee and customer survey results. Now that I am with USAA, I also work closely with our Q12 (UCount) from Gallup. member surveys, and internal customer surveys.
In regards to low survey response rates, I will tell you that the reason you have a low response rate is because leaders do not share the results of the survey, or take actions to improve anything (react) to the survey. When people take surveys (especially a lot of them) and the people administering the survey do not visibly and openly share the results and respond to the issues, the people surveyed feel the survey was a waste of their time.
Imagine if someone came up to you and asked, “How are you today?” You responded to them and they simply walked away. The next day, they walk up to you and ask, “How are you feeling today?” What response would you give…
The thoughts going through your head right now is survey apathy…why should you waste your time answering your questions when no one is doing anything with the information.
You might not be aware that the person that asked that question went back and changed things based on your responses and wanted to see if there was an impact the next day. But, if you are not aware that any actions were taken as a result of the survey (even if you noticed the changes made), then you become jaded to answering not only that survey question, but any survey question.
Just a little survey-related tip that might help in your future survey activities.