The Art of the Survey
THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF DATA:
quantitative and qualitative.
Quantitative is what one typically
thinks of when they think of data:
numbers. Quantitative data can tell
you your average retail spend per
customer, or what percentage of your
customers had a great, good, neutral
or bad experience. But quantitative
data often stops there; you may know
that 10 percent of customers had a bad
experience, but you may not know
why.
That’s where qualitative data
comes in. Qualitative data is, essen-
tially, everything else—it’s the stuff
you can’t quantify, like a handwritten
feedback response from a customer
or a comment from an employee.
Qualitative data should play an
important role in guiding your
decision making as a spa leader, and
it’s often gathered through surveys
and feedback forms. But what makes
a good survey? How do you know
which questions to ask?
“The first start to crafting any
question, quantitative or qualitative,
is ‘what is the end goal?’” says Crystal
Ducker, ISPA’s VP of Research and
Communications. A guest’s time is a
precious commodity, and it’s best to
only ask them questions if the
answers will lead to meaningful,
usable qualitative data. “Ask yourself
if knowing that data point will
change what you do,” adds Ducker.
Once you’ve determined the end
goal, the next step in forming a
question is to be as specific as
possible—a good question is a
specific one. For example: imagine
you want to know whether your team
is properly greeting your guests.
Instead of asking “How was your
experience today?” on your customer
feedback survey, request the
following: “Please describe how our
staff greeted you at the front desk.”
The phrasing of the latter question
hints at the third step in crafting a
good qualitative data question: ask
the question in a way that
encourages description. Ducker
suggests “reading the question back
to yourself to see if it’s something
that you could answer ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ If
you can, then you haven’t written an
effective question.” The heart of
qualitative data lies in the details, so
you want your survey-taker to explain
their experience or describe
something, rather than giving a
perfunctory answer.
As for building out the survey itself,
feedback cards in your spa can do the
trick—but there are more modern and
sophisticated ways to poll your
customers. There are a variety of
online platforms, such as
SurveyMonkey, Zoho and Typeform,
all of which have free and paid
versions available. Your spa’s booking
software also likely has a customer
feedback system built-in to the
Quick Tips for Building a Customer Survey
Whether you’re creating a one-off survey to send to your mailing list, a new customer feedback form
or a general-purpose email follow-up survey, here are some top tips for building a survey that
generates meaningful data.
ANONYMOUS? KEEP IT THAT WAY. Clearly state at the front of the survey if it’s anonymous or not. If it is
anonymous, it’s important to keep it so—once you lose the survey-taker’s trust, they’ll never respond completely
truthfully to one of your surveys again.
INCENTIVES ARE KEY. Surveys without incentives will receive fewer responses than those that offer an
incentive. Find out what your audience will find valuable—like a chance to win a gift card—and offer it as a
reward for taking the survey, if you can.
KEEP IT SHORT. If it’s a short survey, such as a customer comment card, never have more than two big, open-
ended questions. The more open-ended, qualitative questions that you have, the less likely they are to give a
high-quality, detailed answer for each—or to even fill out the survey at all.
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