Are You Getting Honest Feedback?

We all know feedback is important.

Whether you're a tourism operator asking guests about their experience, an employer wanting to understand how your team is feeling, a membership organisation checking in with members, or a board trying to understand stakeholder satisfaction, surveys have become one of the most common ways of measuring success and identifying areas for improvement.

But lately I've found myself wondering if we're asking the wrong question.

Perhaps instead of asking, "How many responses did we receive?", we should be asking, "How honest were those responses?"

Because the truth is, collecting feedback and collecting honest feedback are not always the same thing.

It all comes down to one simple question.

If you were the person completing your own survey, would you feel completely comfortable telling the truth?

Take a moment to really think about that.

Imagine you've been asked to complete a survey. The introduction explains how much your feedback is valued and how important your honest opinions are. You work your way through the questions and then, right at the end, you're asked for your name, your business or some other identifying information.

Would you hesitate?

Would you wonder who was going to read your comments?

Would you think twice before mentioning that issue that's been frustrating you for months?

Would you soften your criticism because you value the relationship?

Or would you decide that saying nothing at all is the easier option?

I think most of us have been in that situation at some point in our careers.

It's not because we're dishonest. It's because we're human.

Research has consistently shown that people are less likely to provide completely candid feedback when they believe their identity is known, particularly where there is an ongoing relationship or a perceived power imbalance. Even if there has never been any suggestion of negative consequences, the simple perception that there could be can influence the way people respond.

Before we answer a survey, many of us are subconsciously asking ourselves a series of questions.

• Who is going to read this?

• Will they know it's me?

• Will this affect our relationship?

• Will anything actually change if I'm honest?

Those questions don't necessarily stop us from completing the survey, but they often change how we complete it.

Maybe we give an eight instead of a six.

Maybe we leave the comments section blank.

Maybe we focus on the positives and quietly ignore the negatives.

Or perhaps we simply don't respond at all.

Over the years I've seen this play out in all sorts of situations. Sometimes it's customers. Sometimes it's employees. Sometimes it's volunteers, committee members, suppliers or industry partners. The setting changes, but the psychology is remarkably similar.

One thing I've learned throughout my career is that silence should never automatically be interpreted as satisfaction.

I've worked with tourism businesses that proudly told me they'd never received a complaint, only to discover through informal conversations with trade partners or customers that there were genuine opportunities to improve. The guests hadn't lied. They simply hadn't wanted to raise the issue directly, or they didn't believe it would make any difference.

The same principle applies well beyond tourism.

People don't just answer surveys.

They assess risk.

If they believe there is little to lose and something to gain, they're generally happy to be open. If they perceive there could be consequences, even if those consequences never eventuate, they naturally become more cautious.

That's not a criticism of the organisation asking the questions. In many cases they genuinely want honest feedback and would never penalise someone for providing it.

The challenge is that perception matters just as much as reality.

If respondents don't feel psychologically safe, the survey results may not reflect what people are actually thinking.

That raises another interesting question.

Should surveys always be anonymous?

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer.

If your goal is to follow up with an unhappy customer, anonymity isn't particularly helpful. If you're collecting testimonials or seeking permission to share a success story, you'll obviously need to know who responded.

On the other hand, if your objective is to understand how people genuinely feel about an experience, a service or an organisation, anonymity can encourage far more honest and constructive feedback.

Perhaps the answer isn't choosing one approach over the other. Perhaps it's being really clear about why you're asking for feedback in the first place and designing the survey accordingly.

For me, the most important lesson is this.

Before you send your next survey, put yourself in the respondent's shoes.

• Would you feel completely comfortable answering every question honestly?

• Would you be confident your feedback would be treated respectfully?

• Would you believe your comments might actually lead to positive change?

If the answer to any of those questions is no, then it's worth considering whether your respondents might be feeling exactly the same way.

The organisations that continue to improve aren't necessarily the ones receiving the highest satisfaction scores. They're the ones that create an environment where people feel safe enough to tell them when something isn't working, and where feedback is seen as an opportunity to learn rather than something to defend against.

Because in the end, the purpose of a survey shouldn't be to confirm what we hope is true.

It should be to help us discover what we genuinely need to know.

Next week: I'll be taking this conversation one step further by looking at what makes a survey people actually trust. We'll explore when anonymous, confidential and identified surveys each have their place, how to ask better questions, and why the way you respond to feedback is often more important than the survey itself.