Open Forum

Hello, 

We are evaluating our current program survey response rate, and I was hoping to get some informal data on what other museums expect on their program-attendee surveys.

Useful information in addition to the response rate:

-How were surveys given (in person, online)?
-Are there differences based on type of program (lecture, workshop)
-Any other techniques that people used to grow their response rate?

And feel free to point me towards other threads if this is well documented, but my searches mostly turned up requests to complete surveys.

Thank you, 
Russell 

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Russell Ihrig
Senior Producer and Manager, Programming
Computer History Museum
Mountain View CA
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Hi Russell

I work for an audience insight agency Morris Hargreaves McIntyre (MHM) - our clients are almost exclusively cultural organizations and museums like yours. We do a lot of program and exhibition evaluation with our clients, and I'm happy to share some thoughts based on your questions that you may find useful in developing your survey:

• Online, the average we tend to see is around 3%-5%, but there are of course outliers (the lowest I've seen was 0.3%, and the highest was around 25%!). But this of course depends on how engaged your audience is with you already, and how big the program was. If you're doing a small workshop with around 5 people you may even get a much higher response.
• If you're able to, in-person surveys are the 'gold standard' as you can randomly sample (approach visitors at random after the program, rather than hoping people will opt in via an online survey), recall is fresh, and it's harder to say no to a friendly person asking you to fill out a survey than it is to not open an email! If you are conducting the surveys in person, try and keep the survey relatively short to maximize response rate and not over-burden the respondent.
• To help increase your response rate, incentives can be really useful. Best practice is to offer a neutral incentive such as a prize draw for a cash prize or a gift card (ie VISA, Amazon, etc), as incentives specific to your organization (ie a free membership or a gift card for your store) could skew the results as you may only attract people who think fondly of your organization, or locals who can take advantage of the membership / store gift card. If a prize draw is out of your budget, you could also consider a small token of appreciation such as a chocolate or a voucher for a cup of coffee in the cafe - just something to say thanks for your time. For online surveys, subject lines are crucial. A good subject line should be short, emphasize any incentive offered, and put the focus on the respondent (ie 'we want to hear from you' or 'share your thoughts'). We've also had a lot of success in subject headers that urge the reader to help out the museum. But you know your audience best so you'll have a better idea of what kind of tone and comms your audiences respond well to. It might be useful to experiment with some A/B testing of subject lines. To maximize response rate onsite, having a good 'ask' is key - being friendly and welcoming, being honest about the time commitment and clearly articulating what the survey is for will all help. Again, asking your respondents for help has seen good results, ie 'Hi, my name's XXXX, I'm doing some research about our visitor's experience's with [program] - do you have 5 minutes to help us out with a quick survey today? 

I hope that helps, feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Good luck!

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Alexa Magladry
Director, North America
Morris Hargreaves McIntyre
Brooklyn
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Wow, thanks Alexa! That's all very helpful information. I especially like the note about neutral incentives. I had not considered the way the gift shop or membership incentives might skew the results. 

------------------------------
Russell Ihrig
Senior Producer and Manager, Programming
Computer History Museum
Mountain View CA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 06-12-2023 09:40 AM
From: Alexa Magladry
Subject: Program Survey Response Rate?

Hi Russell

I work for an audience insight agency Morris Hargreaves McIntyre (MHM) - our clients are almost exclusively cultural organizations and museums like yours. We do a lot of program and exhibition evaluation with our clients, and I'm happy to share some thoughts based on your questions that you may find useful in developing your survey:

• Online, the average we tend to see is around 3%-5%, but there are of course outliers (the lowest I've seen was 0.3%, and the highest was around 25%!). But this of course depends on how engaged your audience is with you already, and how big the program was. If you're doing a small workshop with around 5 people you may even get a much higher response.
• If you're able to, in-person surveys are the 'gold standard' as you can randomly sample (approach visitors at random after the program, rather than hoping people will opt in via an online survey), recall is fresh, and it's harder to say no to a friendly person asking you to fill out a survey than it is to not open an email! If you are conducting the surveys in person, try and keep the survey relatively short to maximize response rate and not over-burden the respondent.
• To help increase your response rate, incentives can be really useful. Best practice is to offer a neutral incentive such as a prize draw for a cash prize or a gift card (ie VISA, Amazon, etc), as incentives specific to your organization (ie a free membership or a gift card for your store) could skew the results as you may only attract people who think fondly of your organization, or locals who can take advantage of the membership / store gift card. If a prize draw is out of your budget, you could also consider a small token of appreciation such as a chocolate or a voucher for a cup of coffee in the cafe - just something to say thanks for your time. For online surveys, subject lines are crucial. A good subject line should be short, emphasize any incentive offered, and put the focus on the respondent (ie 'we want to hear from you' or 'share your thoughts'). We've also had a lot of success in subject headers that urge the reader to help out the museum. But you know your audience best so you'll have a better idea of what kind of tone and comms your audiences respond well to. It might be useful to experiment with some A/B testing of subject lines. To maximize response rate onsite, having a good 'ask' is key - being friendly and welcoming, being honest about the time commitment and clearly articulating what the survey is for will all help. Again, asking your respondents for help has seen good results, ie 'Hi, my name's XXXX, I'm doing some research about our visitor's experience's with [program] - do you have 5 minutes to help us out with a quick survey today? 

I hope that helps, feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Good luck!

------------------------------
Alexa Magladry
Director, North America
Morris Hargreaves McIntyre
Brooklyn
------------------------------

Hi Russell,

I work for Nubart, a European company that has developed The Audio Guide Visitors Keep, an innovative digital but also tangible audio guide system, as part of its innovative solutions for museums and cultural organizations.

At the end of our audio guides, we include a feedback survey form that gives very good results. We achieve a response rate of 8-10% of all users!
I invite you to read more about it here in our blog.

I would gladly send further information.

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Evelyn Crende
evelyn.crende@nubart.eu
+1 (305) 454-2085
Business Development North America
NUBART
Berlin, Germany
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