I was invited by Qantas to join their feedback panel, and despite recent service being fairly unimpressive (Given that I flew one one of the very last flights before the grounding, and two the day the took to the air again that's not surprising) I decided to give it a try.

After my flight to Melbourne for Christmas I got a link to a survey, in it they asked a few questions about service on the ground and in the air. However instead of using text boxes they decided that a 1-10 value was sufficient.

They also rate limit the survey to (based on a forum posting somewhere) not more often then once every 10 days. This means that after my flight back to Sydney, in which many more things went wrong, and right, then normal there was no way to let them know through this channel.

I think both of these are wrong, if I was doing it I would ask five questions (based on their existing questions):

1. What, if anything, impressed you with your experience when booking, and on the ground?
2. What, if anything, disappointed you with your experience when booking, and on the ground?
3. What, if anything, impressed you with your experience in the air?
4. What, if anything, disappointed you with your experience in the air?
5. Any other feedback about this flight?

And in addition to mailing (do it as one mail for all flights at the end of a round trip if it's for a week or less) make the link available as a "give feedback on a recent flight" link for all Frequent Flyers. Perhaps give some nominal bonus (miles/status credits) to people who give feedback that Qantas are able to take action on.

Yes using free text requires more time to review, but it's needed if they really want feedback. Even one person should easily be able to handle 100 requests that need to be examined and passed on for action, or many times that for ones that say nothing specific (or simple things like "the baggage service in SYD is very slow") per day.