Using Surveys For Your Center
Online surveys can be awesome for your center. Offering your families simple, non-controversial surveys about your center or community will draw attention to your center and engage your current families, among other benefits.
There are various types of surveys your center can conduct depending on the kind of information or result you are looking for.
The first type of survey we’d like to talk about is an Awareness-Level Survey. Awareness-Level surveys are ideal for finding out more about your audience. The survey can be anything from researching a hyperlocal, specific topic like your community’s favorite pizza place to a simple study within your school about the children’s favorite toy! Conducting awareness surveys is also an excellent opportunity to connect with your strategic alliances. Perhaps, you can use the favorite pizza place survey information, reach out to the winner, and arrange a promotional event benefiting both your center and the pizzeria.
Inquiry and Tour-Level Surveys are also worth exploring. Both surveys are beneficial for “Inquired not toured” and “toured but not enrolled” families. Sometimes families who have shown interest in your center are simply stuck and may need that extra communication, asking how their experience is and if they would change anything in the inquiry/touring process. A couple of interesting survey topics could be what kind of blog posts your followers would like to read about or even voting ideas for your classrooms.
Lastly, let’s discuss Enrollment & Retention-Level Surveys. These surveys can be satisfaction, event, or feedback based for families that have been with your center a while. They can be used to improve or continue certain practices. Another fun opportunity to interact with your families is to have parents do surveys with their children about anything from their favorite part of the day to the best thing they did at your center’s most recent event. . You’ll get some great answers!
Types of Survey Questions
Now that we’ve talked about the various opportunities and varieties of surveys your center can use, let’s talk about the types of questions to ask.
- Yes/No
- Great for quick responses.
- Ex: Would you like to see more center-based events? (Yes/No)
- Scale questions
- Slightly more detailed of a response than yes/no questions, but still simple.
- You can pick your scale (1-5, 0-10)
- Ex: On a scale from 1 to 5, 1 being the lowest, five being the highest, how likely are you to recommend our center to friends and family?
- Multiple Choice & Checkbox
- Great for voting types of options.
- Gives limits to the length of answers given.
- Ex: What is your favorite ice cream flavor? A. Vanilla B. Chocolate C. Strawberry D. Chocolate Chip Mint E. None of the above F. I don’t like ice cream
- Open-ended questions
- Great for families that are already engaged and open.
- Takes more time for the caregiver to complete.
- Ex: If anything, what would you change about your experience at our center?
How To Make Your Survey Forms
Great sites are available to you, varying from simple to complex, free and paid. Keep in mind most of the free sites, such as Google Forms and Microsoft Forms, aren’t going to have some of the options or visual appeal that the paid sites such as Survey Monkey or TypeForm will offer. So our best advice to you is to play around with a few of the available sites and see which is the best fit for your center or survey.
How Do You Get Your Survey Out There?
- Social Media
- Facebook, Instagram, School Website (Communication board)
- Flyers
- Hand out at drop off or pick up
- Make your flier eye-catching and appealing to draw attention
- Incentivisation (awareness)
- Ex: Enter a drawing to win a gift card to a local ice cream parlor
- Strategic Alliances
- Place flyers at your alliances’ place of business or include them in your incentive for participating in the survey.
The bottom line is to get your information, make it simple, and have fun! It’s all about drawing families to your center in fun and exciting ways.