For practical guidance on setting up a survey and managing one, please use this guide: Creating and managing a survey.
In this guide we provide a suggested template developed by our in-house user experience expert, which can be used as is or adapted to make it quicker and easier for you to get feedback from your community.
We also provide best practice around promoting your survey, sharing the results and repeating the survey in the future.
Check with your communications team about recommended survey tools.
Suggested survey template
Title
Take our short survey to help us improve [workspace name]
Introduction/description
Thank you for being a member of [workspace name]. We have a few questions we'd love you to answer. This will take less than xx minutes, and it will help us create a better experience for everyone. Your responses will be kept anonymous.
Question 1
How often do you visit the [insert workspace name]?
Daily
2-3 times a week
Once a week
2-3 times a month
Once a month
Every now and then
Never
(Multiple choice, single answer)
Question 2
Which of these best describes your primary reason for using [insert workspace name]?
To find and read information relating to my role
To share my knowledge or learning with others
To actively collaborate on ideas or work with others in a forum
To create and share content
To connect with others working in my area
Other (please specify below)
[Answer in open text field, mandatory]
(Multiple choice, single answer)
Question 3
How true is this statement: In the last month, the [workspace name] has enabled me to satisfy my primary reason for using the workspace?
Strongly agree
Agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
(Multiple choice, single answer)
Question 4
Which of these do you think is most important to improve on the workspace? (select up to three)
Finding what I need within the workspace
Seeing the latest updates within the workspace
Quality of content in the workspace
New content or updates in the workspace
Connecting with people in the workspace
Managing documents
Discussion forums
Notifications
Look and feel or design of the workspace
Other (please specify below)
(Multiple choice, up to 3 selections)
Question 5
Reflecting on your response(s) to Question 4, do you have any suggestions for the workspace team about how they could improve the workspace?
(Open text field, mandatory)
Question 6
Do you have any other comments or feedback for the workspace team?
(Open text field, optional)
Promoting the survey
Once you have set up the survey, open the survey to members and let them know by:
- Promoting it on the workspace homepage
- Sending an email notification to all members with a link to the survey
- Sharing the survey link in the workspace forum
- Asking active members of the workspace directly to complete the survey (run a report and pull off active members. See the 'Understanding your workspace membership' report on the Using the FNHS Recommended Pinned Reports article for more information. Also ask inactive members to get their feedback too.
Remember that you probably won’t get a 100% response rate from your workspace members. But any number of responses, however small, can still provide you with valuable insight into how your members are using your workspace and what improvements you could make.
It is also important to demonstrate to your members that you care about their opinions and want to improve and support their community.
Sharing the results
After the survey has closed and you have analysed the responses, we recommend that you share any key themes with your members and what actions you might be taking as a result.
You could also promote the changes with ‘You Said, We Did’ communications – highlighting exactly what changes have been made based on specific themes from the survey.
This will build trust and encourage more members to participate next time.
Future surveys
We recommend that you run a workspace feedback survey for your members every 6-12 months. It is also good to seek feedback from members if you are planning any big changes to the community.
Using the same questions again will help you build up a picture of improvement over time and measure the success of any changes you made since the previous survey.
If you would like further support using this guide, please contact the support desk using the blue ‘Support’ button in the bottom right of the platform.