Research can help you figure out exactly how to deliver member value—and you don’t need a massive budget.
Measuring Member Satisfaction: A Quick Start Guide
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As a REALTOR® association executive, you know that member satisfaction is crucial to the success of your organization, but with tight budgets, the idea of measuring member satisfaction can feel overwhelming. Happily, with the right approach, you can gather valuable insights without breaking the bank. Understanding your goals and paying attention to a few key design points will help you measure member satisfaction effectively and efficiently.

Quantitative Versus Qualitative Research

Before diving into specific “how-to’s,” it’s essential to differentiate between quantitative and qualitative research methods and which to use when. Quantitative research—think surveys—answers questions like “what,” “when,” “how” and “how much.” It’s about measuring specific aspects of member satisfaction to gather numbers you can then analyze, quantify and draw conclusions from.

On the other hand, qualitative research—like individual interviews and focus groups—delves deeper into the “why” behind member opinions and behaviors, providing a richer understanding of their experiences. If you are at sea about why your members are satisfied or dissatisfied—or how a new service might affect that—it’s an excellent idea to talk directly to them via qualitative research to really understand what they’re thinking. Qualitative research is also wonderful for when you know you need to make a decision, but you’re not actually sure what you need to measure to make that decision.

In a perfect world, all research starts with qualitative research to make sure you’re asking the right questions in the first place. But while qualitative research offers valuable insights, it usually costs money. You’ll likely need to pay most members to attend interviews or focus groups, even via Zoom. So, if budget constraints are a significant concern, focusing on quantitative research—i.e., a survey—may be the most practical approach.

A Survey Approach

The greater the business impact of the decisions you’re making based on research, the more you should spend on research professionals to get reliable data. But if you need to measure member satisfaction quickly on a low budget, there are several steps to take before you even start thinking about writing survey questions:

  1. Know what you’re going to do with the data. The information you get back needs to be actionable. In this scenario, perhaps you know that you have a certain amount of money to spend amplifying the program driving the most satisfaction. You’re going to use this survey to help you figure out what that program is.
  2. Put together a research objective. A research objective should be very clear and simple: “To determine or measure X in order to Y.” Here, the objective could be “to measure member satisfaction with our services right now in order to amplify one program that will increase the value proposition of our membership the most.”
  3. Decide on the research questions. These are not the survey questions but the overall “burning questions” you need answered in this survey. Here, those could include: “How satisfied are members now with their membership?” and “Which of my association’s services are my members aware of?”
  4. Write testable hypotheses. Remember that a survey is a research project, and in research, you need hypotheses to be proved or disproved. Hypotheses are found either true or false based on the data you collect. Throw out some possible answers to your research questions, and you will have your hypotheses. If one of your research questions is “Which of my association’s services are my members aware of?” then one answer might be, “Most of my members are aware of our new member orientations but not of our advocacy work.” You can now write questions that will test that hypothesis and show it to be either true or false.

How to Write Great Survey Questions

Now you’re ready to write your survey questions. The most basic questions to measure member satisfaction are:

  1. "How satisfied are you with your membership overall?” Ask this as your first question to ensure that nothing else in the survey biases respondents’ top-of-mind answers. For the answer to this question, use a scale with an uneven number of responses. This allows people to have a neutral response—which they might. For example, on a scale of 1 to 5, 3 should be “neutral.” Make sure to label your scale so members understand, for instance, that 1 is “not at all satisfied” and 5 is “very satisfied.” Also use a survey software that weights your scales automatically so that you can get a mean rating. That will help you understand the “typical” or “overall” member response as well as how many are satisfied or dissatisfied.
  2. "What is the main reason for this?” Follow that satisfaction question with a comment box. You’ll be able to glean at least some of the “why” from lining up those comments against the ratings and seeing what patterns arise.
  3. "Which of the following member benefits were you aware of prior to this survey?” Give members a list of all the benefits you offer. Make sure to include a “none of these” option. Seeing what comes in at the top and bottom of the responses is guaranteed to be eye-opening.
  4. "Which of these benefits have you ever used?” If your software allows it (and it’s best to invest in one that does), offer respondents a specific list ONLY of the benefits they were aware of in the previous question. They won’t have used what they don’t know about. Again, make sure to include “none of these” as a response.
  5. "How valuable to your business are the following benefits?” Offer a list only of the benefits a respondent says they’ve used and ask them to rate those. It’s generally more worthwhile to know the value placed on something by those who actually use it rather than theoretical value from people who haven’t (and who may not completely understand it).
  6. "How likely are you to recommend membership in this association/board to other real estate professionals?” This is what is known as a net promoter score, or NPS. It is a generally accepted measurement for all kinds of products, services, events and organizations. But for you to be able to compare your results to those of other organizations, you need to set the question up in an extremely specific way.

An NPS must be on a scale of zero to 10. The responses are analyzed as follows:

  • Ratings of 0–6 = Detractors
  • Ratings of 7 and 8 = Passives
  • Ratings of 9 and 10 = Promoters

The actual NPS is calculated as follows: percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.

There are no statistical calculations there. The score can be positive (above zero) or negative (below zero) or, in some cases, zero. Your score indicates the following:

  • 75 or higher: This is considered “world class.” You are knocking it out of the park as an association.  
  • 50 to 74: This is a very good score, but there is room for improvement.  
  • 25 to 49: This is a good score, but there is more room for improvement.  
  • 1 to 24: Not bad, but a significant chunk of your membership is unlikely to recommend you.
  • 0: Your members are equally as likely to recommend membership to others as to have neutral or negative feelings about it.
  • Less than 0: Most of your members have neutral or negative feelings about your organization. The closer that score gets to minus 100, the larger the problem.

If you phrase the questions correctly and ask as few as you can, you’ll glean strong data from your members that will help you make the decisions you need to keep your association strong and valued.”

  1. What is the main reason for your rating above? This is the second part of the NPS. You are not gathering an NPS if you do not ask this question. This is where the real gold is. Get replies to this question via a comment box with plenty of characters allowed. When you line up the comments with the ratings and see what your promoters say versus your passives versus your detractors, you will begin to see clear reasons for why they feel the way they do about membership.
  2. “What one thing could [XYZ] association/ board do to increase the value of your membership?” You can make this open-ended or add a list of things you’ve been considering to see what members are most interested in.
  3. "If you have any final thoughts, please share those here.” Always finish with one more open-ended question. That is a very basic member satisfaction survey. If all you really need is a level set on where your members are at, you can dispense with questions 3, 4 and 5. Remember, the shorter your survey, the higher your response rate will be. 

Be sure to do plenty of promotion of this survey in advance via email, social media and at events. Plan on at least two reminders, and keep the survey open for at least a week. You can also provide a small incentive, such as a drawing for a gift card or any popular association offering. If you phrase the questions correctly and ask as few as you can, you’ll glean strong data from your members that will help you make the decisions you need to keep your association strong and valued.