1. Ask yourself the business questions: the first step is not to reflect on “what do we ask customers?” but to establish what information our business needs. How we get it (that is, by asking what questions, to whom, in what way) must come later.
2. The right way depending on the objective: carry out a telephone poll, publish an online survey, submit some questions to customers post-sales, administer questionnaires in the field. There are many ways to carry out a quantitative survey and each has its own characteristics of data reliability, costs, as well as the image that the company gives of itself. No data collection methods are inherently right or wrong: it is a matter of understanding which is best for achieving the objectives.
3. Measure the data in a concrete way, avoiding the temptation of the easier methods: estimating the reference universe, defining the survey sample, distribution planning, proposed evaluation scales, even the choice of the individual words that make up a question in the questionnaire. Every detail can have an impact on the reliability of the data that it’s good to be aware of. Even the way in which I promote and encourage participation in the survey can have a decisive impact on the quality of the information I collect.
4. Understand what you are looking at: Quantitative surveys often generate a very large amount of information, with infinite tables of data in which you risk not understanding what is really important and what is not. Being able to extract the information that will affect business choices, in a simple and visual way, greatly increases the value generated and makes it much easier to share the key points that have emerged even to people within the organisation who have not followed the project step by step.
