Surveys are an effective way of collecting customer feedback. Open-ended survey questions capture important dimensions of the respondent’s experience. The purpose of this study was to compare the critical incident technique (CIT) and the concept mapping approach (CMA) with respect to their ability to identify major customer requirements and the time required to complete each analysis. A case study was performed to identify students’ requirements of in class presentation. Answers to the open ended questions were analyzed using the two techniques. Results of this case study indicated that the CIT appears to be more appropriate for scenarios where continual participation from members of the survey population is not feasible. Otherwise, the CMA would be chosen for analyzing written comments.