Ask feedback questions that support a useful decision

What this means for your practice

Choose the practical question you want feedback to answer and ask only what helps with that decision. Explain the practice's established contact route for a concern that needs a timely response.

What to ask before you choose

Ask an unfamiliar colleague to explain each survey question in their own words. That exposes ambiguity before launch. Show the appropriate route for time-sensitive concerns: an occasional survey review should not appear to be the way to obtain an urgent response.

Connect each question to an improvement

Begin with the decision you want the feedback to inform. If people struggle to find the entrance, ask about the arrival information rather than expecting a general satisfaction score to explain the difficulty. Use wording that allows an honest answer without suggesting that the experience must have been good or bad.

Try the questions with someone who was not involved in writing them. Ask what they think each question is asking and how they would choose an answer. If two questions appear to ask the same thing, decide whether both are needed. Explain how the feedback will be used and the appropriate route for someone who expects a reply or has a time-sensitive concern. Agree who reviews the responses before sending the survey. At the first review, identify which answers actually helped the team make a decision. Remove or revise questions that repeatedly produce information nobody can use, rather than keeping a long survey simply because it has become familiar.

How to check the result

Measure usable responses and questions repeatedly misunderstood.