Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Customer satisfaction surveys are an important part of any company or government agency.  The SRL can manage your customer feedback data and provide you with detailed reports.  View Mary Stutzman's PowerPoint presentation on the importance of customer satisfaction surveys: "How am I Doing? Client Satisfaction Performance Measures: Meeting the Challenges" (viewable only in Internet Explorer)

For more information about this service, please contact Mary Stuzman at (850) 645-5603.

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Web Surveys

The SRL can use the Internet to collect survey information, evaluate training programs, and monitor client satisfaction.  The SRL has experience designing and conducting web-based surveys for a variety of clients, populations, and situations.  We can work with you in developing sampling strategies, designing instruments, posting web surveys and forms, and quickly analyzing the survey results.  Web-based surveys and forms can also be used in "mixed mode" situations where telephone, fax, or mail contact options are also used.

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Training Workshops

Training workshops can be tailored to your needs and offered at your site.  SRL staff can provide training in a number of areas:
         • Survey construction
         • Issues in designing web surveys
         • Developing sampling frames
         • Sampling strategies
         • Administering a survey
         • Mixed mode survey approaches
         • Analyzing survey results
         • Presenting results

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Phone Surveys

The SRL has a computerized, central telephone survey laboratory with facilities for monitoring all interviewing while in progress. The laboratory is equipped with 25 interviewer stations, each of which are CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) ready, and all interviewing is conducted from these facilities at Florida State University.  The interviewers are monitored nightly throughout the study to evaluate their performance and to insure both precision and accuracy.  

The SRL uses Sawtooth WinCati software to automatically route the interviewer through the questionnaire, producing each appropriate question in turn, thus eliminating one source of interviewer error.  On closed-ended questions, all acceptable answers are programmed into the Ci3 questionnaire, and only those responses may be chosen by the interviewer.  Open-ended questions are recorded verbatim.  All data are automatically entered into a computer file by the CATI system, thus eliminating data entry errors.  Surveys are often conducted in both English and in Spanish.

The SRL commonly uses a two-stage process to obtain completions. In the first stage, the lab calls each number to verify that it is a working, non-business phone number.  Once a number is determined to be working, numerous attempts are made on different days and at different times to complete the survey with the potential respondent.  Refusal conversion is attempted for each refusal unless the protocol of a project states otherwise.  Information concerning all telephone calls made on each case is kept in both hard and soft form throughout the survey.

Under most circumstances, the data delivered consists of completed interviews only-- no partial data are included.  A completed interview is usually defined as one in which the respondent has been queried about every question on the survey questionnaire, and all responses have been recorded.  If there are any questions about particular responses, the respondent will be re-contacted and the data verified.  The SRL has worked hard to obtain the highest response rate possible on all the surveys it conducts by engaging in a variety of different efforts to increase the likelihood of response in order to help guarantee the representativeness of the sample and the integrity of the data.

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Mail Surveys

The SRL offers mail surveys and combinations of mail surveys with telephone follow-up.  The staff can assist clients in designing the self-administered questionnaire to assure the highest return rate possible.

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Sample Design

Whether national, regional, state, or city specific sample lists throughout the United States, the SRL can obtain lists to meet the research needs of the client.  The SRL purchases lists from Genesys, ASL, SSI, and other vendors.  For random-digit dialed (RDD) samples, the SRL randomizes the selection of respondents within the household, thus assuring a proper mix of males, females, and age groups in the sample.

The SRL uses a 95% confidence level for its surveys, so that with 1000 completed interviews, there is a sampling error of 4% for that survey.  In other words, 95 times out of 100, the results for any question will fall within plus or minus two times the sampling error (4%) of what would have been obtained if the entire population had been interviewed.

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The SRL staff meets with the clients in order to develop their research projects.  This includes writing a questionnaire that meets the stated needs, selecting question formats, and designing an analysis that will answer the client's research questions.

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Data Analysis

The SRL provides the client with frequencies and percentages for all of the questions in the questionnaire.  The SRL also provides the client with a raw data file on a medium of the client's choice and SPSS syntax and save files which allow the client to further analyze the data with that statistical package.  More extensive analysis is available for an additional charge.  In the past clients have requested detailed contingency tables (cross-tabs), graphing, regression analysis, logit, probit, and analysis of variance.  The research staff will work with the client in interpreting and presenting the analysis of the results.  The staff can also produce written reports to meet the clients needs.
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Data Entry

The SRL can use its CATI system for scripted data entry for large data collection projects.  This option has been used by clients who conducted large in-house mail surveys or in-person interviews.  These data were then entered by the SRL staff.

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