Get the Most Out of Facilities Customer Satisfaction Surveys

In a climate of declining budgets and rising student and faculty expectations, a better understanding of customer wants and needs can help facilities ensure best use of limited resources. To that end, facilities departments are increasingly turning to annual customer satisfaction surveys to measure their campuses’ views of facilities performance.

To see value from customer satisfaction surveys, institutions must address three challenges. First, facilities leaders must clearly outline their aspirations for the survey so they can better identify questions that yield actionable responses. Then, leaders must create an outreach plan that includes all necessary constituents and provides a full picture of campus opinions. Finally, facilities units should use strategic analyses to understand responses and make informed, customer-centric decisions about resource allocation, investments, and more.

This brief is divided into three sections that explore customer satisfaction surveys in greater detail. The first section provides guidance on selecting the survey questions that will yield valuable data. The second section focuses on survey deployment tactics, helping institutions determine when and how to deploy a survey for maximum reach. The third section helps institutions understand how to analyze and share survey results.