[00:00:00] Mel: Hey friend, welcome to another short and sweet episode of Less Chatter More Matter. I'm your host, Mel Loy, and I'm recording this on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin in Brisbane. Now in this series, over Christmas and New Year, we are delivering a topic in 10. So basically you send me a question and I answer it in 10 minutes or less, simples.

[00:00:22] Mel: Thank you to everyone who has submitted a question so far, and you can still get yours in by sending me a message, an email, or by using the link in the show notes. Last week, the question was about how to get people to read your newsletter. Well, this week we have another great question that I know many of you will be interested in.

[00:00:41] Mel: It reads, Are we surveying people too often given the lack of responses? What other creative ways could we explore to gather meaningful feedback from more dispersed groups? Such a great question because we are always told we need to measure and I know I bang on about that too. But to answer the first [00:01:00] part of your question, are we surveying people too often?

[00:01:02] Mel: I would say yes, survey fatigue is a real thing in organisations, especially large organisations where there may be multiple calls for feedback from various departments at any time and nothing is coordinated. Or if you're serving your customers and they are also being bombarded with survey and feedback requests too.

[00:01:22] Mel: So if that is the case, what can we do? Well, I've got a few ideas to share with you today. The first one, it's an oldie but a goodie, the good old suggestion box. Now this can be digital or physical or both, but it is a great way for people to leave their feedback and encourage ideas because we want both, but in a way that they feel comfortable with.

[00:01:45] Mel: I've seen this done in a few different ways, just a Microsoft form. That's always open, for example, through to literally a physical box in offices around the country, whatever that looks like for you, or my personal favorite is just a giant wall where people can [00:02:00] add their thoughts and ideas to a card or a post it note and pop it up.

[00:02:04] Mel: However, rather than just having a free for all, I would pose a specific question or ask about a specific event, for example. So maybe you could have a question up like, what would you do to make our CEO town halls even better? You can even change it up every week with a different question, have a different way people can respond.

[00:02:23] Mel: So for example, maybe they can just pick an emoji and post that as well. Now there's a few things at play here that help this work really well. Number one is for the most part, it's an opportunity to remain anonymous because there are people who are concerned about potential retribution, real or perceived if they give bad feedback.

[00:02:42] Mel: Number two, it's novel. We don't do this stuff anymore. And that makes it stand out. So scrawling on a piece of paper or adding a sticker under a particular idea or an answer to a question on a wall is fun and unique. And we also value things more if we put effort into them. That's all part of the [00:03:00] Ikea effect that I've talked about previously.

[00:03:02] Mel: And number three, particularly when it's on public display, like a wall, it taps into good old fashioned social proof. Basically we base our behaviors on what we see other people doing. So if others see their colleagues and leaders responding, they're more likely to as well. And this can work anonymously as well.

[00:03:19] Mel: You could have a tracker on the digital box saying how many people have put in their suggestions, right? Uh, you could also have a clear suggestion box so people can see how much paper is in there, how many people have written things down. So that's number one, go old fashioned. Number two, use a voice channel.

[00:03:37] Mel: So you could consider giving people the option to call a number or text in a voice message. Again, it's different. So it's novel, but importantly, it's easy. It's something people can do while they're on the go. It doesn't have to be very long, can be very short. And they can literally just leave a voice note in WhatsApp or teams or whatever you decide to do.

[00:03:58] Mel: And again, you could preempt it with a [00:04:00] particular question you'd like them to answer. Number three, again, keeping it easy, keeping convenient, using the technology people have. If you have the tech and the permission to do so, you could simply just text your audience and ask them to provide a rating on a scale of one to five in response to your question.

[00:04:19] Mel: Quick and easy. So on a scale of one to five, how useful was that town hall on a scale of one to five? How much, how well do you think you understand this strategy, whatever it is, but make it easy. Okay. The fourth one, live feedback throughout your event, whether that's digital or in person or both. So if you've ever watched an Australian election debate, you'll be familiar with the worm.

[00:04:45] Mel: It's the live feedback stream that runs across the bottom of the screen. It's a line graph. And it just shows people's sentiment as they're watching this debate. Getting people to share their feedback and ideas throughout an event is a great way to capture them [00:05:00] in the moment. And again, it's about making it easy.

[00:05:03] Mel: So use a tool like Slido, for example. You can just have a running poll open or an open answered question. Again, to help encourage people, I would tap into that social proof and make sure people can see that others are responding to the question, maybe by displaying it on a separate screen, for example.

[00:05:22] Mel: Number five, make it fun. So you could, for example, turn the feedback survey into a quiz where you could use multiple choice answers to test how well people understood your key messages. So for example, a question might be something like the CEO said our new strategy would take how many years to implement three, five or seven.

[00:05:43] Mel: And again, incentivise with prizes or even just public recognition, like a leaderboard can be really, really helpful as well. So again, make it easy, make it fun. There's two other things I'll quickly mention while we're on the topic of surveys. Number one, if a survey is the [00:06:00] only way that you can think of, well, it's practical, then get them while they're hot.

[00:06:05] Mel: Now, what I mean by this is, especially for events, get them to complete the feedback survey before they leave. So have a QR code printed and on their seats, posted around the rooms, displayed on a screen, whatever, and ask them to do that before you have that closing session of the event. So they still have to stay for that.

[00:06:25] Mel: So it's not a matter of, Hey, we've now closed. Can you do please do the feedback survey? It's one more thing before we close today's conference or event. Just take two minutes. We're going to play some music - off you go and do the survey. They can't run away. That's a good thing. Uh, or at the bottom of your CEO or a customer email, just have a simple five star rating that people can just click on to share how they felt about that email.

[00:06:48] Mel: And if you send a feedback link out after an event, basically good luck getting a response. It'll get lost in the myriad of comms people already have, and they've already moved on anyway. So really get them while they're hot. [00:07:00] The second thing I want to touch on, and this is really important. Make sure you're sharing the feedback you got.

[00:07:06] Mel: People want to know that they've been heard. People get fatigued when they realize they're filling out all these surveys, but it feels like nobody is listening. So they start thinking it's not worth it. So commit to sharing the outcomes of your feedback, share the key trends that come through, thank them for participating, tell them what actions you're going to take, all those good things.

[00:07:28] Mel: Okay, so here's a quick recap. The question was, how can we get feedback in a world of survey fatigue? My top five tips were make it visual by using a suggestion box, a board or a wall and mix up the questions, mix up the way people respond. Number two, try using a voice channel because again, it's easy and it's quick.

[00:07:48] Mel: Number three, use a text channel. If you've got permission to do so, number four, get that live running feedback throughout your event. So get people to, you know, respond to sentiment questions, all those sorts [00:08:00] of things. As the event is occurring, number five, make it fun, use quizzes and competitions to get the feedback at the same time as offering a bit of enjoyment for your audience.

[00:08:11] Mel: And remember. Get them while they're hot and share the feedback. Okay. I hope that was really helpful for you. I hope that was helpful for everybody who listened to this episode today. Again, if you have any questions, send them through, I'd love to be able to help. And if you've also got ideas for how we could respond to these questions, send them through because we will share them in the newsletter so that everybody has access to all these amazing ideas, because there is such a broad amount of talent in this audience.

[00:08:38] Mel: And I know you're all creative types who can come up with some really cool stuff. So in the meantime, keep doing amazing things. Thanks for tuning in and bye for now.