What to Avoid when Creating a Member Experience Survey

A good member satisfaction survey can help you take the pulse of your membership and learn what they’re really thinking. Survey feedback provides the insight you need to take your services to the next level.

Unless that survey is used improperly, that is. If you don’t survey well…

Or if you don’t use the results responsibly…

Well, then it may have been better not to survey at all! So, make sure you avoid doing these things next time you send out a member satisfaction survey.

Your NPS Score Is for More than Peer Benchmarking

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey is a great tool for measuring member satisfaction. Well, it can be. But it can also be useless, misleading, or downright harmful if you don’t use it right.

Think of an NPS survey like a knife:

Used well, it’ll help you get the job done. Chopping veggies, slicing a bite of steak, or threatening a very large bear. These are all great uses for a knife!

But if you use it wrong? Well, there’s always stabbing… or grabbing it by the blade instead of the handle.

So, any tool can be used wrong with pretty bad results. And while wielding an NPS score improperly isn’t going to kill anyone, it certainly may hurt. At the very least, it will provide you with unreliable information that can’t be used effectively.

Here are some reasons why member satisfaction survey data or NPS scores shouldn’t be used for peer benchmarking. Consider these variables:

Younger generations provide more negative feedback
Older generations provide more positive feedback
People whose accounts are in collection will always be less happy with their experience
Sample sizes greatly affect scores—your sample size may not be the same as a competitor’s
Memberships in different regions tend to score and give feedback differently

While you can certainly correct for those variables, it won’t completely equalize things. So, while peer benchmarking is fun—and it can give your scores some context—remember that benchmarking isn’t using your survey.

Using your survey means listening to your members and then making actual changes.

Your Low Survey Scores Are Your Best Feedback

We all love a good “atta boy” or “you go, girl!” Everyone likes knowing when they’re doing well. Consequently, a lot of credit union survey questions tend to be broad—it’s harder to tell someone they’re doing a bad job overall if there’s only one or two issues that need fixing.

Accordingly, it’s best to survey around specific tasks or transactions. Rather than, “how was your branch visit?” Try, “how were the wait times in your last branch visit?” Or, “were the tellers able to help you with your needs?” Or, “how was the coffee?”

Focusing in on smaller tasks allows you to better see where you’re not hitting the mark. Even if the branch visit was pleasant, maybe the wait times could have been better. That kind of granular data will keep you from getting inaccurately positive feedback.

Plus, that negative feedback gives your credit union a real opportunity to grow.

So, don’t focus too much on the positive feedback you’re getting! It’ll boost your ego, but it won’t boost your performance.

Instead, focus on the little things. Keep your member satisfaction survey questions narrow. And pay extra attention to the negative feedback!