Summary

Having decided what type of survey to conduct, you are now in a position to design a suitable questionnaire. Good questionnaire design will be affected by many factors and this chapter will highlight:

1. What we can deduce from the Standard about questionnaire design.

2. How to ensure that your questionnaire is the right length.

3. What sections should be included in your questionnaire and in what order.

4. How to avoid common mistakes in questionnaire wording.

5. Which is the most suitable rating scale for customer satisfaction measurement.

6.1 What the Standard Says

The standard has nothing specific to say on the technicalities of questionnaire design. The only clues on questionnaire design are to be found in the 'monitoring and measurement' section, where clause 8.2.1, 'customer satisfaction', states:

• As one of the measurements of the performance of the quality management system, the organisation shall monitor information relating to customer perception as to whether the organisation has met customer requirements. The methods for obtaining and using this information shall be determined.

There are two key indicators in this brief statement from the Standard. The first is that the organisation must measure whether it has met customers' requirements and this, in turn, has two implications for questionnaire design. The first implication was covered in Chapter 3, where we established that in order to measure whether customers' requirements are being met, the questions asked must focus on customers' main requirements. These will be established through exploratory research using the 'lens of the customer'. If the 'lens...