Abstract
The KOF Swiss Economic Institute has been investigating the development of the Swiss Economy for more than 75 years. To come up with a timely display of the economic situation, KOF continues to survey companies on a regular quarterly or monthly basis. Several economic indicators like the KOF Business Situation, the KOF employment indicator and the KOF Economic Barometer are computed based on survey data. In the summer of 2013 KOF conducted a feedback survey to learn more about the data generating process behind survey data and to improve the understanding of companies’ workflow to handle regular surveys. The survey was conducted among firms of the service sector and focused on measurement of capacity utilization, response burden and drivers of the assessment of the current business situation respectively expectations. Turnover and profit situation are the most important drivers of companies assessment of the business situation. Capacity utilization is mostly driven by staff related factors. The response burden caused by business tendency surveys is considered moderate on average.