Parks & Recreation Member Satisfaction Survey Questions

A membership satisfaction survey offers highly meaningful information that your parks and recreation organization can use to improve many areas, from association staffing to program offerings and more.

A survey is an invaluable form of research that reveals your members’ sentiments, reflecting on how well or how poorly your organization or association is doing. A member satisfaction survey can also help foster a sense of understanding between your organization and your members, potentially strengthening membership loyalty.

When creating or evaluating your member surveys, here are some ways to make sure you’re getting the most value. There are several areas where you can obtain valuable content, including social media content, association membership benefits, and more.

Essential Feedback

If you ask the right questions, your responses from any association member will help you pinpoint and address specific concerns within your parks and recreation organization. Design your survey to identify how well your organization currently meets the needs of your members, and whether they are satisfied. By allowing for anonymity, your members can answer openly and honestly to truly help you target issues.

Before surveying your members, it’s sometimes helpful to test a short member questionnaire with regular customers, visitors and drop-in guests who use your association services less frequently. Their initial feedback will help you form more in-depth survey questions for your members. Remember to involve managers from your organization in the process, so that your survey questions and responses can also serve a purpose in reporting and development plans.

Create an Opportunity for Listening and Understanding

A member satisfaction survey creates a new channel for communication, allowing association members to share their views and opinions about your parks and facilities. By providing an opportunity (which perhaps otherwise didn’t exist) to voice their concerns to you directly, you may be able to avoid publicly voiced dissatisfaction via online reviews, social media, and other sources. While it could be difficult for a long-time member to voice those concerns during a class, a satisfaction survey provides the ideal platform to express any positive or negative feedback to your association.

Furthermore, sharing the results of your surveys with association employees and staff will help everyone feel like an important team member, especially for departments that are work behind-the-scenes. For staff who don’t interact directly with the public, surveys often serve as opportunities to see how their work has also influenced member satisfaction.

Learn from Survey Results and Adjust Accordingly

Results gathered from your membership surveys give your organization or association insight into its strengths and weaknesses from a customer perspective. Since parks and recreation services are for the public, the voice of your community is extremely important. Take this opportunity to shake up your organization and address the weaknesses that your members have underlined. Your findings will also inform areas for prioritization as your organization moves forward.

Increase Member Retention and Loyalty

After executing the improvements suggested by your association members through a survey, your organization may see higher average utilization. Demonstrating that you’ve noted and applied your community’s constructive criticism is vital to retaining loyal members. Asking members, 'how likely are you to renew your membership?' will tell you a lot about how strong your retention rates are.

Any parks and recreation association membership satisfaction survey is an effective tool for improving your organization’s programming, attracting and retaining members, and more. Asking the right questions will reveal deeper insights than day-to-day interactions with your members would. To make the most out of this information, be sure to follow up with another survey in a few months’ time to determine whether members have become more satisfied with the improvements, and what could enrich their experience even more.

Need ideas for getting started on building your questionnaire? Here are 10 questions we highly recommend:

1. How long have you had your membership to our organization?
2. Are you involved in any committees or groups?
   1. If so, please list them here.
3. Have you ever volunteered with our organization?
   1. If not, what would encourage you to volunteer?
4. What types of events would you like to see us host in the future?
5. Do you currently follow us on social media?
   1. If yes, please specify the platform(s).
6. What content would you like to see us post about on social media?
7. Would you like to receive news/announcements from our organization?
8. What do you currently like most about our organization?
9. What do you currently like least about our organization?
10. How likely are you to renew your membership in the upcoming year?

To further improve your organization, take advantage of Xplor Recreation’s parks and recreation management software. The powerful, user-friendly system enables your organization to manage activities, facilities, memberships, and more all in one place. Learn about the platform here.