GB532 Unit 6 Questionnaire Draft Example

Twenty-Two Items, Each With a Defense: A Unit 6 Questionnaire Draft for Propane Customers With Heat Pumps

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GB532: Marketing Research

Unit 6 Questionnaire Draft

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The propane distributor and the questionnaire are composite; the questionnaire design principles and sources cited are real.

The Cover Letter

The letter explains that Otter Creek Propane is asking customers how they heat their homes so it can plan deliveries and services, promises that answers will not affect anyone's delivery or price, gives an estimated eight minutes, and names a person to contact. Dillman et al. (2014) find that explaining who is asking, why and how answers will be used raises response and trust, especially when a company surveys its own customers.

Section 1: Who Decides

Item 1. "Who in your household usually makes decisions about heating equipment and fuel?" Options: I do; I share these decisions; someone else does.

Note: placed first so that the rest of the survey can be read in light of who answered. A respondent who does not decide can still describe the home's equipment, so no one is screened out.

Section 2: Equipment

Items 2 to 6 ask whether the home has a propane furnace or boiler, propane space heaters, a heat pump, a wood or pellet stove, or electric baseboard heat, each answered yes or no.

Note: a list of yes-or-no items is used rather than a single "check all that apply," because people answering a check-all list tend to stop early. Groves et al. (2009) describe this tendency and recommend forced-choice formats for items that matter.

Item 7. For homes with a heat pump: "What kind?" Options: ducted, using the home's air ducts; ductless, with wall or ceiling units; not sure. A small drawing of each type accompanies the options.

Item 8. "About how many indoor heat pump units does your home have?"

Item 9. "In what year was your first heat pump installed?" with the option "not sure."

Note: "not sure" is offered because many households did not install the equipment themselves.

Section 3: How the Home Is Heated

Item 10. "During a typical winter month, about what share of your home's heat comes from each source?" with a row for each source the respondent marked and answers in tenths, from none to all.

A question asking for the "primary heat source" forces a hybrid household to pick one answer when in truth the answer changes with the temperature outside.

Note: this item replaced an earlier version asking for the primary heat source.

Item 11. "On the coldest days of winter, which heat source does most of the work?" Options include each source and "both about equally."

Item 12. "Has your propane use changed in the last two winters?" Options: increased, about the same, decreased, not sure.

Item 13. For those who answered decreased: "What is the main reason?" with options including a heat pump, insulation or windows, fewer people at home, lower thermostat settings, price and other.

Section 4: Delivery and Service

Items 14 to 16 ask for satisfaction with delivery timing, communication about deliveries and price, each rated on five labeled points with dissatisfied at one end and satisfied at the other.

Note: each aspect is asked separately to avoid double-barreled items that combine two questions.

Section 5: A Backup-Heat Plan

Item 17 describes the plan in three sentences: guaranteed delivery during cold snaps, a smaller annual fee for tank and monitoring, and pricing based on how much propane is actually used. It asks: "How interested would you be in a plan like this?" with five labeled answers running from no interest to strong interest.

Item 18 asks which feature matters most.

Note: the plan is described only after the use questions, so that answers about use are not shaped by knowledge of the offer.

Section 6: Heat Pump Services

Item 19. "Would you consider having Otter Creek install or service a heat pump for you?" Options: yes, maybe, no.

Section 7: About the Home

Items 20 to 22 ask the home's approximate size, number of people living there and years as an Otter Creek customer.

Note: placed last, since personal questions are easier to answer once the survey's purpose is clear, and needed to compare respondents with the frame.

Malhotra (2019) recommends ordering questionnaires from general to specific and from easy to sensitive, which the draft follows.

Items Considered and Dropped

Three items were drafted and removed. A question asking customers to rate their likelihood of switching suppliers was dropped because it invites strategic answers from customers hoping for a discount. A question about household income was dropped because it adds length and sensitivity without serving any objective in the problem definition memo. And a question asking why the household installed a heat pump was dropped because the decision does not depend on the reason, only on how the home now uses propane. Each removal shortens the survey, which matters for response rates in a mailed questionnaire.

Length and Layout

The instrument runs four pages, printed in a booklet with one column of questions per page and generous space between items. Skip instructions for the heat pump items appear as arrows next to the answer boxes rather than as written instructions, which respondents often miss. The estimated completion time of eight minutes was checked by two colleagues timing themselves.

Next Step

The draft will be read aloud by a few propane customers before printing, to find items they stumble on.

References

Dillman, D. A., Smyth, J. D., & Christian, L. M. (2014). Internet, phone, mail, and mixed-mode surveys: The tailored design method (4th ed.). Wiley.

Groves, R. M., Fowler, F. J., Jr., Couper, M. P., Lepkowski, J. M., Singer, E., & Tourangeau, R. (2009). Survey methodology (2nd ed.). Wiley.

Malhotra, N. K. (2019). Marketing research: An applied orientation (7th ed.). Pearson.