Good survey questions can mean the difference between getting the desired results you need from your survey or not. It can be tricky to know what to ask and how to phrase your questions. Remembering these 5 dos and don'ts will make the process easier.
1. What’s the goal?
The most important thing when creating survey questions is to always keep in mind your business objectives and exactly what you’re trying to achieve with your survey. Regardless of whether it's KPIs, retention, new opportunities or business performance; these all impact on how you phrase your questions.
Related content: The common pitfalls of customer experience management
2. Keep it short
Keeping your survey short will increase your response rates and increase your chances of receiving a statistically significant number of responses.
Don’t forget you can always conduct follow-up surveys if you feel that you’ve left anything out. This method is better than bombarding your subjects with a multitude of questions. Often, asking just two or three simple questions is enough.
3. Keep it simple
Simple surveys that use only a few, easy-to-answer questions are easy to distribute and easy to understand after analysis, allowing you to cut to the heart of the data quickly.
By using a method like the Net Promoter Score system, you get this simplicity—a simplicity that belies the complexity of the insights it generates. By asking just a few questions and for a rating out of 10, your company gets the insights it needs to succeed.
It's a quick-to-answer way to get the data you need, and the NPS method itself is regarded world-wide as one of the most effective metrics in determining customer loyalty and business strengths/weaknesses.
4. No jargon please
Keep the language to what your respondents understand and are familiar with. This will also help to increase your response rate and build up your credibility. As a rule of thumb, keep the language simple and direct, and talk to people on their level. Explain what you're asking in a clear and succinct way.
5. No restrictive multiple choices
If you’re using multiple choice questions with answers that don’t include the response your respondents want, that’s a frustrating experience for your respondents. This may even mean that they give up on your survey altogether or make them skip the question.
Want the ultimate guide to online customer surveys? Check it out here:
