Forms

Evaluation forms can be great sources of feedback as well as effective marketing tools. Sometimes the best type of evaluation forms are ones you make yourself. You can tailor the questions to fit your presentation and provide spaces for names and e-mails that you can use for your marketing efforts.

Effective Evaluation Forms

Ideal evaluation forms should be short, encourage honest feedback, and provide room for written comments. Give the responders the option of either keeping their comments anonymous or providing their name and contact information. The forms should be limited to one side of letter-sized paper at most.

Questions Used on Evaluation Forms

The “on a scale of 1 to 5″ type of questions are popular on evaluation forms because they enable responders to provide useful feedback quickly. When writing this type of survey, make sure that the scale is clearly labeled and the questions fit the responses. You can use numbers with the highest number as best and the lowest as worse, or you can label each of your possible responses. Provide enough responses so that you can get a clear picture of how the audience rates your presentation, but not so many that responders have to stop and ponder which box to check. A range of five options is usually sufficient for evaluation forms.

The most important part of forms from a marketing standpoint is the place where responders can provide their name and contact information. But providing this information must be optional. Responders typically want to be able to respond anonymously on these types of forms. One option is to put spaces for the name and contact information on a tear-off portion of the evaluation form or on a separate sheet of paper. This enables people to provide their name and contact information and still respond anonymously.

Feedback From Forms

Evaluation forms are gold mines of information that will enrich skills. Here are some tips that will help you use feedback to improve presentations:

• Do the math. Count up how many of each response you receive. Did you mostly get fives or threes? Calculate the average score for each questions. This will help you determine how the reviewers ranked you overall.
• Look for trends in the written responses. What questions did your listeners ask the most? What things did they like? What did they dislike? This will help you focus on where you can improve.
• Use the responses to help understand areas where you might have had difficulties.
• Follow up. Contact reviewers if you need clarification or more detail about their comments. This is also an opportunity to build good relations.
• Use the feedback to improve your evaluation forms. Are you not getting useful responses? Fine tune your questions and the scale of responses. Are people skipping the written responses? Make your questions clearer and more focused. Are people not filling out the form at all? Shorten it and make the questions simpler.
• Always be grateful for feedback, positive or negative. Don’t take it personally and don’t get defensive. Feedback is a tool you can use to improve.

Evaluation forms are a powerful tool that will help you improve your skills and business. Be sure that you have feedback forms ready for your next project.