Whatever niche you work in, you should know the basic principles of writing good survey questions. A well-designed survey can help you collect valuable feedback, find answers to important questions, and analyze the key problems you or your company face.
Let’s review different survey types and consider question examples that are worth asking. It will be a good start for you to master the skill of survey design.
Closed-ended questions VS. Open-ended questions
All survey questions fall into two categories: closed-ended questions and open-ended questions. The first category always provides respondents with a predefined list of answer options. Here is an example:
What is your favorite fruit? (Pick one fruit from the list)
- Apple
- Pear
- Orange
Open-ended questions require respondents to write an answer in their own words.
What is your favorite dessert? (Type the answer below)
____________
When you are designing a survey, you should opt for mostly close-ended questions. You should do it for a few reasons.
Firstly, respondents prefer this type of question because it requires less time and effort to provide answers. For instance, if you create two similar surveys to collect customer feedback – one survey includes open-ended questions, and another one contains closed-ended questions – the second survey will engage more customers and bring you more reviews.
Secondly, the results of the survey with close-ended questions are easy to visualize and analyze. Using the software, you can build charts, pie charts, and diagrams to research the respondents’ preferences in more detail.
What about open-ended questions? They will provide you with more insights. But it will take you more time to analyze the results because you will process them manually.
Types of closed-ended questions
Now let’s talk about different types of closed-ended survey questions you can use in your practice.
Multiple-choice questions
This survey question type is the most commonly used and for a good reason. They are intuitive and easy to use – even small kids are capable of responding to them.
All you need to do to design such a survey question is to formulate the question as clearly as possible and suggest two to ten mutually exclusive choices.
How did you hear about us?
- A post from a friend on Facebook
- Google Maps
- Word of mouth
How would you rate the support you received?
- Good, I’m satisfied.
- I’m partly satisfied. I still have a few questions.
- Bad, I’m unsatisfied.
Rating questions
Rating scale questions are frequently used to measure customer or employee satisfaction levels.
The answer options are typically displayed on a scale with a range of 1 to 5, 1 to 10, or 1 to 100. On this scale, “1” refers to the answer “definitely not” or “not at all likely,” and the biggest number refers to the answer “definitely will” or “extremely likely.”
The respondents need to select the number that most accurately reflects their satisfaction levels.
Here are a few good examples for you.
Likert scale questions
If you want to get to know how your customers or employees feel about a specific issue, you should use Likert scale questions. You should write a positive statement and ask respondents whether they agree or disagree with it. Answers should include from three to seven graduated options similar to these:
- Strongly agree
- Agree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Disagree
- Strongly disagree
I’m satisfied with the product quality and its packaging:
- Strongly agree
- Agree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Disagree
- Strongly disagree
Or, you can ask a satisfaction-related question.
How satisfied were you with your recent flight from Los Angeles to Paris?
- Very dissatisfied
- Somewhat dissatisfied
- Slightly dissatisfied
- Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
- Slightly satisfied
- Somewhat satisfied
- Very satisfied
‘Yes’ or ‘No’ questions
The simplest type of close-ended survey questions is ‘Yes’ or ‘No” questions. You can use such questions to simplify your survey and improve the respondent’s experience.
Have you received your order on time?
- Yes
- No
Are you satisfied with premium delivery services?
- Yes
- No
Demographic questions
If you want to know what your respondents think and what backgrounds they have, you should add demographic questions to your survey. You can ask for information like age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, occupation, income level, and many more. That will add value to the results of your survey and help you gain better insights.
Keep in mind that your demographic questions should be relevant to your target audience and the subject of your study.
Imagine you created a flashcard and essay database. Now you are designing a survey to learn more about college students who use this content for studying and who are looking for essay writing help online and tend to read the academic writing site reviews. Basically, you don’t need to ask students about their age or race – this information will not provide you any value. Instead, you should ask the following questions that will help you to improve your content strategy.
What is your year?
- Freshman
- Sophomore
- Junior
- Senior
What is your major?
- Marketing
- Computer science
- Mechanical engineering
4 tips on how to create an effective survey
Here are a few useful tips that will help you to get the most out of your survey:
- Don’t stick to one survey question type. Mix different types to enhance the responder experience.
- Ask responders to provide only the information that you actually need. If you add too many questions to your survey, not many people will complete it.
- Don’t ask obvious things. For instance, if your run a survey for a lingerie shop, don’t add a gender-related question – you already know that more than 90% of your target audience are women.
- Proofread what you write. Make sure that questions and answer options are free from spelling mistakes and typos.
In conclusion
Now you know what types of survey questions you should use to get the information you need.
