Best practices for customer surveys - Step 5: Create a schedule

In Step 4, you documented the process for completing the customer survey. Now it is time to add information to this document that will turn it into a project schedule. Specifically, you will add three new columns to the table:

Timing
Responsibility
Deadline

Example

For a typical customer survey, the schedule might look something like this:

Activity	Timing	Responsibility	Deadline	Description
1. Identify possible suppliers	Week 1	Pam	May 6	Short-list suppliers that seem like a good fit
2. Request quotes	Week 1	Pam	May 8	Get estimates (not firm bids) from 2 or 3 suppliers that seem like the best fit
3. Review quotes	Week 2	Pam, John	May 15	Compare quotes from suppliers. Follow up with each regarding questions or clarifications
4. Request proposals	Week 2	John	May 16	Request firm bid from one or two suppliers
5. Select supplier	Week 3	Pam, John	May 19	Make selection, inform supplier, schedule kick-off
6. Kick-off call or meeting	Week 4	Pam, John	May 26	Meet with supplier to plan path forward, determine contents of survey
7. Prepare invitation list	Week 4	John	May 30	Compile list of potential respondents
8. Draft questionnaire	Week 4	Supplier	May 30	Send first draft of questionnaire
9. Draft invitation	Week 4	Pam	May 30	Develop email to invite customers to complete the survey
10. Revise questionnaire	Week 5	Pam, John, Supplier	June 5	Refine and revise questionnaire as needed
11. Get buy-in from stakeholders	Week 6	Pam	June 6	Review questionnaire with relevant managers. From each, get either approval or suggested revisions
12. Finalize questionnaire	Week 6	Pam	June 6	Make and approve any additional changes
13. Program survey	Week 7	Supplier	June 10	Program online survey
14. QA testing	Week 7	Supplier	June 10	Comprehensive Quality Assurance testing of survey programming
15. Test-drive	Week 7	Pam, John	June 11	Pre-test online survey before potential respondents are invited to participate
16. Get buy-in from employees	Week 7	CEO	June 11	Announce upcoming survey, communicate purpose and benefits
17. Invitation	Week 8	John, IT	June 16	Send email invitation to potential respondents
18. Data collection	Week 8-9	Supplier	June 27	Respondents complete online survey
19. Analysis & reporting	Week 10	Supplier	July 3	Cross-tabulation, statistical analysis, and comprehensive report
20. Review results with supplier	Week 11	Pam, John, Supplier	July 7	Review draft report
21. Finalize report	Week 11	Supplier	July 11	Make any necessary changes prior to internal distribution
22. Present results to management	Week 12	Pam, John, Supplier	July 14	Review results, implications, and recommendations
23. Take action	Week 12	Sr. Mgmt. Team	July 18	What will we do differently based on results? Include objective, actions, implementation plan, metrics for success
24. Repeat survey	Week 26	Pam	Jan 18	Repeat customer survey to measure success