This 'How to' looks at measuring partner agencies’ satisfaction in two ways.

For many funded organisations a key outcome indicator will be the level of satisfaction other organisations have with them. Organisations will be asked to survey organisations they work with, refer to and receive referrals from.

What do we measure?

You may have specific questions about satisfaction that you want to ask. The DHHS outcomes framework is focussed on the aspect of quality and responsiveness.

The kind of questions that the DHHS outcomes framework suggests could be asked to measure this satisfaction are:

• Are you satisfied with the quality and responsiveness of the services delivered to your clients by our service?
• Are you satisfied with the quality and responsiveness of the services you directly receive from this organisation?
• To what extent does the service make a vital contribution to supporting the community / driving service system improvements?

Whatever you decide will be your satisfaction measures, don’t have too many. Two or three will be enough.

When do we measure?

This will be determined by your reporting requirements. In negotiations with your Funding Agreement Manager make sure you argue that ‘less is more’. Given the small size of the Tasmanian community sector, it isn’t practical to be surveying each other too often.

How do we measure?

The best way to answer the questions above is to use a survey, and within the survey the best tool to use is a ratings scale.

A common ratings scale to measure satisfaction is:

For more information on ratings scales, see How to create and use ratings scales.

You can put your three satisfaction questions together and ask them at once, in a matrix.

The DHHS Outcomes Framework suggests a tool that puts the three satisfaction questions to other agencies as statements and asks if they agree or disagree with them. Their ‘partner satisfaction measurement tool’ looks like this:

DSS tool for recording client satisfaction

For more information on how to construct survey questions see How to write questions for a survey.