Parent Satisfaction and Referral Survey (PSRS)
 

If you were going to increase your word of mouth referrals by 25% to 50%, where would you start?

GraceWorks' Parent Satisfaction and Referral Survey is the first step. In three to four weeks, learn precisely who is making referrals to your school ... and why.   

And now - we even ask your Promoters to suggest names of new families, which we immediately email to you!

Find out what it will take for your non-referring families to start actively referring -- in their own words.  (This group of "mostly satisfied but not referring" parents will typically be 5 times larger than your enthusiastically referring parents.)

Discover what really satisfies your parents (and students) -- and what does not.  Compare the relative satisfaction of parents who experience different aspects of your program.  (Why spend big money on program improvements that will satisfy no one?)

Compare the relative satisfaction of your teachers and parents ... and the board!  (Do you really have a staff morale problem?  A board morale problem?)  Order your Parent Satisfaction and Referral Survey today.

New!  Now with precise calculation of the program elements that thrill, frill, annoy and flat-out disgust parents.  Plus, with our new leverage feature, we tell you, by the numbers, what program improvements will most satisfy your parents, most dramatically increase your word of mouth referrals.

Normed data!  Today, over 50,000 Christian school constituents have taken a PSRS.  We tell you, in percentile terms, how you rank, both school as a whole, and by subgroups.

What Is the Parent Satisfaction and Referral Survey?

The Parent Satisfaction and Referral Survey (PSRS) is an online survey that takes parents about 15 minutes to complete.

The survey device itself is based on three decades of customer loyalty research by Harvard's Fred Reichheld, and JD Power's consumer satisfaction methodology. 

Best of all, the entire survey is completely confidential.  Through a unique token number system, GraceWorks never sees or collects any parents' names or emails.  Parents themselves decide if their name will be matched (by you) with their token number.

How the PSRS Works:  A Simple 5-Step Process

The entire Parent Satisfaction and Referral Survey process can be completed in three to four weeks.

Step 1:  Determine who will be surveyed.  Typically this includes each parent or guardian, each staff member, your board of directors, and past parents, donors, and volunteers you know or suspect are still making referrals to your school.  You can even survey members of sponsoring churches!

Step 2:  Order the survey, and call or email a count to GraceWorks, determine the survey cut-off date, and decide upon cross-tabs.  Call (719) 278-9600 or email Steve@gwmin.com.  GraceWorks will provide token numbers for everyone you decide to survey. 

Step 3:  Assign one number to each individual to take the survey.  This will be your one and only way to know specific answers of parents who choose to reveal their answers in the final confidentiality question.

Step 4:  Distribute your number "tokens" and an explanation to your entire survey group, according to your assignments.  An email works well, which allows you to electronically send the link: (www.gwmin.com/psrs.asp)

Step 5:  Send a reminder to parents to complete the survey half-way through the allotted time period.  Survey takers can exit to one of your web pages, where they can print out a reward coupon.

PSRS:  What You Get

A few business days after your survey is finished, GraceWorks will email you a complete report (typically over 100 pages) which includes:

(1)  The Cross-Tab Report.  A straight-forward measure of satisfaction and willingness to refer for your specific school, both overall and by sub-category.  With a simple, straight-forward number, you will know parental satisfaction and willingness to refer for your entire school along with several dozen sub-categories, from parents in a specific grade to Generation X'ers to parents making more than $150,000 a year to students themselves. 

While the Cross-Tab Report includes tests of statistical significance, the results are presented in a way that the average lay person (or board member) can understand.

(2)  The Detail Report.  Parents' specific answers to the follow-up question to their level of satisfaction.  We ask parents who love your school why they do ... these become great testimonials for both your literature and website.  And if a parent is having a problem with your school, we ask them what it will take to fix it. All of this is reported back to you verbatim, in your parents' own words.

Best of all, we report these answers to you both for the school as a whole as well as sub-categories.  This enables you to evaluate problem areas identified in the Cross-Tab Report.  For example, if parents of 2nd graders are significantly less satisfied, you can read their specific comments to understand what the problems are.

(3)  The Percentile Report.  How parental satisfaction at your school compares to other Christian schools throughout the country.  New schools are taking the PSRS almost daily, and GraceWorks is developing nationwide norms for the instrument.  On a possible range of -100 to +100, the highest school so far is over 90, and the lowest is -44. 

(4) The Matching Report.  We provide you a special Excel report with a macro that enables you to match up your names with lists of Promoters (with testimonials), Passives (with annoyances), and Detractors (with problems).  And we match up those who have and have not completed the survey.

(5) Marketing Volunteers.  Survey respondents who are willing to help you with key marketing tasks.

(6) Buying Topology.  If respondents are not sending their children to your school, what school are they attending, and why?

(7) New Family Leads.  We ask your Promoters (optionally) - who do you know who would be blessed being at the school?   Names and contact information.

(8) Leverage - The highest leverage fixes to improve satisfaction and willingness to refer to your school, by the numbers.

(9) Thrill, Frill, Disgust, Annoy me - what respondents really think, in easy to read charts.

(10) An Explanation of Everything.  Each report includes a reader-friendly explanation, along with a helpful appendix on "What Do I Do Now?" to increase word of mouth referral at your school.

Understanding PSRS Cross-Tabs

Cross-tabs are an incredibly powerful feature of this cutting-edge research.  Consider these examples.

Example #1:  "We need a new gym ..." What is the relative satisfaction of parents whose children actively participate in sports, compared to those who do not?  

If sports-minded parents are significantly less satisfied and less willing to make referrals than other prospective parents, then it's likely that "if you build it, they will come."  (This assumes that the lack of a gym is the problem ... you might find out in the detail report that it's your basketball coach!)

On the other hand, if both groups of parents are equally satisfied, that should give you significant pause before you commit millions. 

Example #2:  "The portables have to go ... " If you have portable classrooms, you could compare the relative satisfaction of parents with children in portables versus parents in the main building.  If both groups of parents are equally satisfied, spending several hundred thousand dollars on permanent classrooms will probably not increase your enrollment significantly.

The logic is really quite simple.  If 85%+ of your new parents will come from the word of mouth referral of current parents (and other constituents), you had better find out if your proposed capital improvement will significantly increase parent satisfaction before you commit millions.  A standard feasibility study will NOT tell you this.  Thousands of schools have overbuilt on the faulty assumption that "if we build it, they will come." 

On the other hand, through the PSRS parents will often tell you low-cost program improvements that will dramatically increase parental satisfaction and their willingness to refer. 

In other words ... now you can add a marketing point of view to your program improvement decisions!

Order today, or feel free to call GraceWorks Ministries at (719) 278-9600 with your questions.