Listening with Care: How SisterWeb Monitors Client Satisfaction Surveys

By Natalie Brewer, Evaluations Intern and MPH Student at the University of San Francisco | April 2025

At SisterWeb, we believe that birth justice begins with listening. Our commitment to uplifting the voices of Black women doesn’t stop after the baby is born—it continues through reflection, feedback, and growth.One way we stay connected to our clients' experiences is through our Client Satisfaction Surveys. These surveys help us understand how families experienced doula care, what they valued, and where we can do better. Behind every survey response is a thoughtful system that ensures we hear each voice clearly, with integrity and care.As an Evaluations Intern from the University of San Francisco, working toward my Master of Public Health (MPH), I’ve had the opportunity to support SisterWeb in managing and improving this process. Here’s a look at how we monitor survey responses—and a few lessons we’ve learned along the way.

📬 Step 1: Inviting Clients to Share Their Story

Each month, we use a secure HIPAA-compliant case management software called Compyle to identify clients who are at least two weeks postpartum and had a live birth with the support of a SisterWeb doula. We then reach out via text and email with a heartfelt message inviting them to share their feedback.We make it clear that their insight will help improve doula services for other families—and as a thank-you, we offer a $25 gift card.💡 Pro tip: We log each outreach effort in our tracking system so that we can follow up in a respectful and organized way.

👶 A Key Check: Was a Doula Present? Before a gift card is sent, we confirm that a SisterWeb doula attended the birth. This helps ensure that the survey truly reflects care we were responsible for—so the feedback we receive is meaningful and relevant to our work.

🤰 Another Important Check: Completed Care We also make sure the client completed the full scope of care—prenatal visits, birth support, and postpartum follow-ups. If a client exited the program early or didn’t receive the full set of visits, we hold off on sending the survey. This helps us maintain the integrity of our data and ensures we’re only evaluating experiences that represent the full arc of SisterWeb’s care.

✉️ Steps 3 & 4: Gentle, Respectful Follow-Ups

If we don’t hear back after the initial email and text, we follow up by mailing a postcard reminder.

These postcards are more than just a reminder—they’re a reflection of SisterWeb’s values and spirit. The design was lovingly created by Anne Kenny, a long-time SisterWeb supporter, in partnership with our community of doulas. From the bold, affirming message “Black Wombs Bloom Joy” on the front, to the thoughtfully placed QR code on the back that links the client to the survey, every detail was chosen with intention.

The doulas offered input on everything from color palette to wording, ensuring that the final product would resonate with our clients and feel warm, empowering, and accessible. The postcards are designed not only to encourage survey participation but also to affirm and honor the experiences of the people we serve.

A week after mailing the postcard, we follow up one last time with a final text and email reminder.

📌 This three-step approach balances gentle encouragement with respect for our clients’ time and energy during the busy postpartum period.

🎁 Step 5: A Small Gift of Thanks

Once a client completes the survey, we copy their responses into our internal tracking system and quote repository (with care and confidentiality). Then we alert our gift card volunteer to send a thank-you card and the $25 gift.This step might sound simple, but like many parts of program evaluation, it’s more complex than it appears. For example, sometimes a client submits the survey twice, which could lead to duplicate gift cards being sent. We've added a quality check to make sure we only use the first survey submission and make a note of any duplicates to keep things fair and accurate.

📊 Step 6: Tracking What We Learn

Completed surveys are saved for our annual reports, impact evaluations, and quotes database. If a client doesn’t complete the survey within two months, we move them to a separate tracking tab. This helps us see trends over time—like which outreach methods work best or which cohorts are more responsive.

✨ Why This Work Matters

At first glance, survey monitoring might seem like just another administrative task. But dig a little deeper, and it becomes clear—it’s a powerful act of care.

Each survey we collect is more than data; it’s a lived experience, a moment in someone’s birthing journey. When people share their feedback, they’re trusting us with their stories, their joys, and their challenges. It’s our responsibility to listen with intention.

This feedback doesn’t just sit in a spreadsheet. We use it to reflect, adapt, and improve our programs. It helps us understand what’s working, where support is most needed, and how we can better show up for the families we serve. Most importantly, it allows us to highlight the effectiveness of community-based doula care—something we know makes a difference.

So yes, survey monitoring is administrative—but it’s also transformational.

As a team, we are committed to:

• Honoring clients’ time and input

• Ensuring fair and accurate gift distribution

• Making space for feedback to inform program improvements

• Uplifting the voices of communities historically ignored in maternal health systems

🧭 How We Stay Grounded: Purposeful, Powerful, Practical

At SisterWeb, we use the Results-Based Accountability (RBA) framework to guide our evaluation work. This approach ensures that our data is not just collected—it’s meaningful and used to drive real change.

We ask three essential questions:

• How much did we do?

• How well did we do it?

• Is anyone better off?

These questions keep us focused on impact and accountability—measuring what matters, not just what’s easy to count.

🛠️ Ethics, Equity, and Evaluation

SisterWeb’s approach to evaluation is grounded in our values and an understanding of the historical misuse of research in communities of color. We believe that research must be done with communities, not on them.

We uphold these core principles in all our data practices:

• Collaboration / Co-Creation

• Compensation for participation

• Clarity of Purpose

• Consent that is fully informed

• Carefully Protected client information

• Celebrating Community, not just identifying gaps

As one of our guiding quotes puts it:

“Right or wrong, research can drive decisions. If we do not address the power dynamics in the creation of research, at best, we are driving decision-making from partial truths. At worst, we are generating inaccurate information that ultimately does more harm than good in our communities.”

This is why we care so deeply about the how behind every evaluation process. The integrity of our work depends on it.

💬 Final Thoughts

This behind-the-scenes work is one of the many ways SisterWeb shows love and accountability to the families we serve. We know that trust is built in small actions—like logging a note, checking for duplicates, or sending a thank-you card. Every detail matters.And when a client takes the time to complete our survey? We listen.

With gratitude,

Natalie BrewerEvaluations Intern, SisterWebMPH Student, University of San Francisco