Two of the most important steps in designing a survey program are deciding on the content of your survey and defining your survey sample.  Once the data are collected, we will use the most appropriate and informative statistical analysis procedures to:

• Describe the findings
• Track changes over time (where appropriate)
• Provide you with actionable, strategic recommendations for how you can make improvements in key areas of your business relationships.

Survey Content
The survey content defines the areas under investigation, generally including multiple dimensions identified in discussions and interviews with key staff in your organization and with a knowledgeable sub-sample of the group your survey will target.  This may be limited to extensive discussion or extend to structured interviews or focus groups conducted with representatives of all sides of the relationships you seek to understand and improve.  This is a highly collaborative process in which  we work together with you to identify the most critical dimensions within your key relationships and to identify the outcome measures we will use to understand your strengths and weaknesses, track changes over time, and make strategic recommendations for how to move those relationships forward.

Survey Sample
The survey sample itself may represent either all members of the target group (e.g., all of your employees or customers) or a smaller sub-sample of the target group selected according to predefined rules, such as a stratified random sample selected to provide a representative group of respondent. This is balanced by world regions, divisions within your company, or other key demographic segments that define the stakeholders within your business relationships.

GuideStar data analyses typically include descriptive statistics (such as the percent "satisfied" on various items), identification of strengths and weaknesses, and significant differences across important segments or subgroups. We track changes over time and include computation of index scores (e.g., customer or employee loyalty). Where sample size permits, we also conduct sophisticated statistical modeling procedures to understand the links between key dimensions in the survey and the business outcomes you want to achieve.