Surveys are the means of data collection that helps brands and businesses to identify opportunities, assess challenges, and set direction. Though you may have an idea about the questions to include in the survey, what makes a difference is how you write them. Framing survey questions is both an art and science. The survey questions have the potential to influence your respondent’s outlook on the subject matter as well as unknowingly coerce them to answer a question inadequately. It is all about the wording. Figuring out how to make a good survey that yields actionable insights is all about sweating the details.
Fortunately, we’ve got a raft of tips to help. Crucial for success is comprehending the diverse types of survey questions and how they work. Each question demands a different approach.
- Avoid Leading questions
Leading questions are usually summoned as the guilty party in the space of bad survey questions. It induces influence over the participant’s choice. Though it might not be very apparent, the wording of the leading questions is fishing for a certain answer. The presence of predisposed wording bends the reader to one side of the reasoning. In the case of a customer survey, what you require from your customers is to share their true feedback instead of you dictating the terms.
For instance,
How delicious was your cheesecake?
The question here leads the participant to rate the deliciousness of the cheesecake. The adjectives used often instigates bias. Instead, framing the question as How was the cheesecake? It lets the focus remains on cheesecake and allows the participant to share a positive or negative response without any influence.
- Avoid loaded questions
While the objective of the survey is to gather honest answers that offer insight and opinions into the customer experience, loaded questions usually lead to participants sharing inaccurate responses or abandoning the survey altogether. Such questions influence the participant to share an answer that doesn’t honestly reflect his opinions. The wording brings along an assumption about the customer’s attitude and perception.
For instance,
Where would you like to go trekking?
The above question lays the assumption that everyone loves going on a trek. There might people who wouldn’t be interested in the idea of a trek compelled to either abandon the survey or input an accurate response. If the above question followed a preliminary question like ‘Do you like to trek?’, the loaded question can be considered appropriate. If the person responds with a yes, ‘Where would you like to go trekking?’ can be the next apt question.
- Avoid double-barrelled questions
Do you know what is one of the most common ways of ruining your survey results? It is asking double-barrelled questions. It’s important to note that the survey question should measure one thing at a time. A question involving two subjects distracts the respondents to contemplate the different elements involved. Compelling the respondent to attend to multiple questions at a time, it gets difficult to interpret the intent and honesty behind the answer. To stay clear of double-barrelled questions, the quick tip is to keep a check for conjunctions.
- Avoid the use of absolutes
An absolute question refers to the ones including words like always, all, every, ever,” etc. Such questions limit the scope of the respondent to a yes/no response. For instance, Do you always shower in the morning? (Yes/No)
The above question would compel almost any respondent to answer “No.” The hard and fast approach of the absolutes makes questions too rigid to be used in a survey. Instead, the question should have a variety of options that people will feel more comfortable choosing from.
- Avoid unclear questions
When the questions are not easy to understand and require the respondent to invest more than a few seconds, the possibility of abandonment is higher. As you design the questions, you need to ensure to use simple language devoid of slang, abbreviations etc.
- Avoid random questions
Including random and irrelevant questions in your survey is a classic example of a flawed survey. Any question that does not align with the context or the subject matter spoils the respondent’s experience causing a loss of interest. For example, while questioning the respondent’s professional journey, asking a question related to his food habits will be beyond inappropriate.
Conclusion
By refraining from committing common survey question mistakes, your survey is finely tuned to deliver accurate and honest feedback. It is key to differentiate between the good and bad survey questions. Highly qualified questions deliver high-quality insights.
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