Table of Contents

Why Surveys for Agencies?

This Guide's Audience and Scope
Organization of This Guide

Part One

The Essentials: What Managers Need to Know about Customer Surveys

1. What Are the Main Purposes of Customer Surveys?
2. What Specific Information Can (and Should) Customer Surveys Provide?
3. What Customer Surveys Cannot Tell You
4. What Are the Major Problems with Surveys?
5. Whom Should You Survey?
6. Who Said What? The Need for Breakouts of Survey Findings
7. Who Should Conduct the Survey?
8. When Should Surveys Be Done?
9. How Much Accuracy Do You Need? What Are the Major Potential Sources of Error?
10. What Determines Survey Costs?
11. What Do the Data Mean?
12. What Respondent Rights Need to Be Protected?
13. How Should Customer Survey Findings Be Reported? What if the News Is Bad?
14. What Should Be the Role of Elected Officials (or Board Members) in Customer Surveys?

Survey Administration and Sampling

15. What are the Key Steps in Conducting a Survey?
16. How Can Questionnaires Be Administered to Respondents? What Are the Pros, Cons, and Costs of Each Option?
17. What are the Key Elements of Survey Costs? How Can They Be Reduced?
18. Should You Sample? What Are the Key Concerns in Sampling?

Summary Checklist of Recommendations for Agency Managers

Appendices

1. Portland Citizen Survey Questionnaire
2. Guidelines for Contracting Customer Surveys
3. Formula for Calculating Confidence Intervals for Percentages

Notes

Glossary

Selected Bibliography

Index

Exhibits

1. Typical Quality Service Characteristics
2. Sources of Survey Errors
3. Format for Summarizing Data for Each Survey Question (Hypothetical Data)
4. Illustrative Transmittal Cover Page: 1997 Youth Risk Behavior Survey
5. Suggestions for Increasing Response Rates to Mail Surveys
6. Sample Survey Transmittal Letter
7. Mail Citizen Survey Costs: 1996 Portland/Multnomah County
8. Survey Cost Elements
9. Ninety-Five Percent Confidence Intervals for Various Sample Sizes and Question Responses
10. Ninety Percent Confidence Intervals for Various Sample Sizes and Question Responses
11. Examples of Sample Sizes and Corresponding Confidence Intervals
12. Percent Chance That 1 Percentage Point Difference between Two Groups of Approximately Equal Size Occurred by Chance
13. Percent Chance That 5 Percentage Point Difference between Two Groups of Approximately Equal Size Occurred by Chance
14. Manager's Decision Worksheet for Each Survey
A-1. Elements to Include in Contracts for Customer Surveys