I find surveys can carry a stigma. Some love them and swear by them while some are turned off by them and downright despise them. It might even be 1/3, 1/3, 1/3; use often / use sometimes / never use, not unlike most things I’m sure.
We have a survey platform. So naturally, I get into deep discussions about them with those that are in favour and those that aren’t. One topic that I hear from those that are vehemently against is relation to the tone. Many GM’s feel their staff get discouraged or deflated from the results and that surveys just resemble a loudspeaker for members to voice displeasures.
I get it and quite frankly, they’re not wrong.
Last week I was curating an Exec Summary for a club after a member survey via our platform (FYI, this is an added service and not included normally) and it allowed me to take a deep dive into the quantitative and qualitative data, aka numbers and comments. I couldn’t help but notice the disjointed nature between the two. The numbers, when correlated with our industry benchmarking, suggested this club was rivalling best in class in almost every area. The comments suggested otherwise. If I gave the numbers to one person to read and the comments to another there is no way you would think it was the same survey!
Does that mean this survey has less value? Absolutely not. In fact there is value in both the comments and the numbers. The numbers are essential to track improvement. For better or worse – what gets measured get managed – and without this you simply don’t know how things are trending. Relying on the voices around the bar, in the shop or in the locker room are not reliable enough to track improvement or decline. Full stop.
So where do the value of survey comments come into play you ask? They are two fold…
- One of the most powerful human needs is the feeling of being understood.
Comments give the audience; members, guests, staff, volunteers, the opportunity to speak their mind. As a Club Leader, is every comment actionable? Of course not. Roughly 40-60% (Club Study data 2023) of a Club Manager’s daily activity is walking around the club helping people feel understood, but, it has its limitations and the survey can enact this for the larger group. - You have to look for patterns in the comments.
It’s very difficult to get context or scratch the surface in a survey question or in its series of questions. The comments will do this to a fault, however, if there is a particular name, space, time, or detail that needs addressing you can find it in the comments. This will take some patience.
We are poor at articulating ourselves, we’re not robots and usually speak off the cuff. I will always advise against showing your board or other staff the comments if possible. I concede this is difficult. It comes across as a lack of transparency but ultimately we can’t help ourselves. We gravitate towards the comments while the numbers take a backseat.
In the end, taking into account my bias, I will advocate for the numbers. And if it means permitting, and mostly discarding, the comments in order to acquire the data. It’s still worth it.
Ryan Tracy, Managing Partner
59club Canada
#WhatGetsMeasuredGetsManaged