ROC Weekly Marketing Minute
Using Survey Monkey as An Effective Data Gathering Tool for Your Drug and Alcohol Treatment Facility
Survey Monkey is an effective tool to help you gather information from the people that are important to your rehab facility; clients, staff, stakeholders, and the community.
Survey data can be an effective way for you assess what is working and what needs modification for your business.
When creating a survey, be sure to ask yourself what the purpose is and how you will use the information once it is gathered.
Features and benefits of using Survey Monkey
If you are new to Survey Monkey, here is a list of benefits and features that you can expect:
Custom branding- You can add your company colors, logo, and images throughout the survey to help participants identify who it is from. You can also use custom URLs and redirect to a custom page on your site once the survey is complete.
Easy question creation- Choose from 15 question types when creating your survey. You have the option to start your survey from scratch, use pre-made questions templates, or use questions from a question bank to help you get started.
Easy reporting- Reporting happens in real-time so you can start making decisions quickly.
Low-cost- There are different tiers of pricing to choose from, starting with a free version. If you have a one-off survey to launch, you can do so at zero-cost. If you plan on having ongoing data collection, you can consider the pricing option that best suits your needs.
Anonymity options- If you are interested in running an anonymous survey, Survey Monkey offers you to option to do so.
Advanced survey options- You can run more complex survey options, such as skip logic or answer piping. Survey Monkey provides the tools for you to create a survey as simple or complex as you need.
Question types available
Here is a list of the question types available to choose from on the Survey Monkey platform:
Multiple choice questions
Rating scale questions
Likert scale questions
Matrix questions
Drop-down questions
Open-ended questions
Demographic questions
Ranking questions
Image choice questions
Click map questions
File upload questions
Slider questions
Benchmarkable questions
Ways to send a survey
There are a number of ways that you can send a survey, and the one that is most appropriate may depend on your audience. Here is a list of ways you can send your survey to respondents:
Social media- post the survey link on your social media channels and encourage your followers to participate
Website- embed a survey on your website or display it in a pop-up window when visitors arrive at your site
Email- send an email directly from Survey Monkey by uploading your contacts
Web link- create a link of your survey and send it to your contacts
Tips to create an effective online survey
Here is a list of tips you can follow to create an effective online survey:
Use proper formatting
Survey Monkey has a number of features that can help you make your survey more logical and effective. You can group similar questions in the same section and use page breaks, titles, and instructions where necessary.
Include explanations when necessary
If you use a complex or industry term in your questions, or describe something that may have more than one interpretation, be sure to clarify it in simple terms to help increase the overall understanding of your question.
Avoid yes/no questions
Asking yes or no questions often fails to capture true opinions of respondents. By providing a range of answers for participants to choose from, you will get a more accurate idea of their perceptions and opinions.
Keep it brief
You participants won’t want to answer numerous pages of questions. Focus on the questions that are really important and minimize the number of questions you ask.
Ensure respondents receive relevant questions
You can use skip logic to target the questions you ask certain people based on how they answered previous questions or based on the groups to which they belong.
Use words rather than numbers for answer options
It is more effective to provide a range of answers that are words rather than numbers. For instance, if you ask a question and provide a range of preferences, you can use answer options like “extremely likely,” “somewhat likely,” “somewhat unlikely,” and “extremely unlikely” rather than a range of answers like “1,” “2,” “3,” and “4”. Using words is typically easier for people to understand.
Be straightforward
Be sure to write your questions in a way that only asks about one thing at a time. When you include multi-part, or complicated questions, it can confuse your respondents and lead to inaccurate data.
Ways to use online surveys
While online surveys have been around for a while, there are new and exciting ways that you can use this method of information gathering to benefit your rehab center:
Client feedback
Reach out to past clients to get their feedback. This can inform your business decisions moving forward.
Employee feedback
Survey your staff to learn about what it working and what isn’t at your facility.
Stakeholder or partner feedback
Reach out to the people invested in your business to gather their opinions and feedback on issues that matter.
Event planning
You can gather information before, during, or after an event to help it run more smoothly.
…But what about HIPPA?
Survey Monkey does enable you to collect PHI if you upgrade to the Enterprise level account.
To do so:
Upgrade to an Enterprise account.
Enter into a Business Associate Agreement.
Survey Money will turn on additional privacy safeguards compliant with HIPAA security requirements.
To get more information about Survey Monkey and HIPPA, you can read more here.
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