September 2019 - Parks & Recreation - 17

Create the survey: You will want
to design the survey questionnaire
to generate actionable data. At the
same time, you should aim for respondents to have a high-quality
customer experience when completing the survey. Hence, respect
your customers' time by keeping
the questions (and the survey as a
whole) short and to the point.
Conduct the survey: There is
no single optimal method to conduct a survey. Indeed, the goals of
the survey should inform the decision whether to conduct it electronically, on paper or in person.
Common survey methods include
email, postcard, canvassing a public event/park/recreation center,
website and door-to-door interview. Each method has its own set
of pros and cons that will inform
your decision on which to choose.
Use the data: If and how you
conduct a feedback survey do not
matter if you do not use the results
afterward. Identify how best to use
the research findings both inside
and outside your organization to
improve your agency and its programming. Sharing data externally is also an effective way for your
agency to celebrate and broadcast
its successes and communicate upcoming changes to the public.

consider removing it from the survey.
Ensure that the survey questions
are accessible to the target audience, using their language. Design
your survey questions to be brief,
specific and free of jargon and other words that your residents may
find unfamiliar or off-putting.
Become familiar with your
agency's and jurisdiction's privacy
policies. When possible, avoid collecting survey respondents' personally identifiable information. And,
if you must collect this type of information, put safeguards in place
to ensure data security.

Resource Center Additions
The Customer Feedback Survey
Resource Center is only the first
element of a wider suite of tools

we will be rolling out to help park
and recreation professionals collect
actionable information from and
about residents. Additions to the
resource center will cover a wide
range of topics all related to how
you can use data to inform your
work in a relevant, resource-conscious way. Each tool - including
those on community needs assessment and measuring agency's program performance - will be easy to
use and will not require expert-level
experience. Potential resources in
the future will center around Community Needs Assessments and
Measuring Your Agency's Program
Performance. Keep a watch out for
the next installment.
Kevin Roth, Ph.D., is NRPA's Vice President of Professional
Development, Research and Technology (kroth@nrpa.org).

See us

NRPA
at

Booth

#5710

Respect Their Time
Keep your feedback surveys short so
residents can complete them in only
a few minutes. Only include questions that will elicit the information
you most need to learn (go back to
your survey's goals in step one to
keep the questionnaire focused). Be
clear on how you will use the responses to each question - if you
cannot identify an action you would
take based on a question's response,

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Parks & Recreation

September 2019 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2019 - Parks & Recreation