How To Write Good Survey Questions (With Examples)

If you have ever run a survey or thought about it, you might already know how important it is to gather valuable insights. But if your surveys lack these crucial things, then all your efforts can go in vain.

Even worse, you might have to reinvest your time, money, and effort from scratch to gather important insights. Is there a solution to this problem?

Yes.

But before that, you should know what the problem is. Most often, the issue lies in the type of survey questions. They are usually ineffective and lack depth, due to which customers aren’t invested in answering the queries.

If you ask the right survey queries from the beginning, you can save yourself from all the hassle of repeating the process from A to Z.

In this comprehensive guide, we will discuss what a good survey query is and how you can create some for your business. Not only this, you’ll also get some good examples of these questions that you can use for your business.

So, are you ready to achieve amazing results using these examples and information in this blog?

What Is a Good Survey Question?

A good survey question effectively collects the necessary information while being clear, concise, and unbiased. It gives useful information about your target audience, employees, or customers. You can clearly understand how your customers feel about your product, services, or business in general.

Another indication of a good survey query is that it’s asked at the right time period.

What does it mean?

It means your query is not irrelevant. It’s about your customers’ pain points and encouraging them to respond honestly.

Good questions in surveys = Opportunity to get closer to your business goals.

But what do I mean by a good query? Are there any bad survey questions?

Yes.

Many things can turn a good survey question into a terrible one. It can be:

• Phrasing
• Timing
• Type of query
• Order in which query is asked

You might have encountered some queries that don’t have any insights. So when your customer opens it, they become so confused. It even includes responses that are influenced by certain biases.

Bad questions in surveys→ Poor data insights in surveys.

But here’s the good news.

You don’t have to fall into this pool of bad queries. 

Types Of Survey Questions 

Now, this is the most crucial aspect of your survey questions. There are many questions, but I’ll share some of the best questions with you that will engage respondents and interact on a much deeper level. It is divided into broad categories that you should know.

1. Open-ended Queries

You should initiate the conversation with an open-ended question. With these, you can get meaningful information from the respondents

Example: “What are your suggestions for improving our customer service?”

2. Closed-ended Queries

There are some questions on which you don’t want detailed information. A simple yes or no is more than enough for you to get clarity. They are most often used to get quick tit-bits of information. They are straightforward and can be useful for obtaining binary responses.

Example: Have you used our product in the past six months?

• Yes
• No

3. Rating Queries

You might already know about ratings of reviews and products, etc. This is also similar to that. In this type of survey question, you can ask customers to rate the product or service according to their experience. This way, you can understand how customers experience your business.

These can be used for assessing satisfaction, importance, or frequency.

Example: “On a rating scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with the service you received?”

4. Likert Scale Queries

These questions allow you to find customers’ points of view about certain things. These questions measure the strength of agreement or disagreement on a statement. Respondents typically choose from a range of options, such as strongly agree or disagree strongly.

Through these, you can assess attitudes and opinions.

Example: Indicate your agreement with the statement: I am satisfied with the company’s product quality.

• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Neutral
• Disagree

5. Multiple Choice Question

You must have seen these questions in your tests and quizzes. Give the respondents some options, and they can choose the right one.

However, the only difference is that your business questionnaire has no right or wrong answer. All of this is done to gather information. You can collect structured data for questions with clear answer choices.

Example: Which of the following social media platforms do you use regularly? (Select all that apply.)

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

6. Demographic Queries

These are a mixture of different types of questions. You can choose a drop-down menu option like MCQs, open-ended questions, or anything that fits your business goals.

These questions collect information about respondents’ characteristics, such as age, gender, income, marital status, or location. Demographic data is often used for segmentation and analysis.

Example: “What is your age?”

• Under 18
• 18-24
• 25-34
• 35-44
• 45-54
• 55-64
• 65 or older

But it’s not limited to this only. It can include a collection of nonnumerical data such as gender, industry someone works in, etc. Remember, there are numerous other types as well. But these are most commonly used. Do you know why?

Because they help yield exceptional results from the respondents.

Guide To Writing Good Questions For Your Surveys

We have been discussing good survey questions such as this, etc. But how can you create it?

What are the techniques you can use to ace this?

Here are the top 7 tips for you to write great questions.

1. Get Clarity On The Goal

Clarity is an extremely important part of every business. Suppose you’re the marketing manager for an e-commerce company, and you want to improve the user experience on your website.

You believe that simplifying the checkout process will lead to higher conversion rates.

Now higher conversion rate → Your goal

But right now, this is just a hypothesis. You have to implement changes and conduct a user satisfaction survey to get a clear idea.

Your questionnaire should revolve around the following goal:

• On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with our website’s checkout process?
• What aspects of our checkout process do you find most frustrating?

These are just a few examples you can use in this scenario. But you can be as creative as you want to achieve your goal.

2. Avoid Using Complex And Confusing Language

There might be a huge gap between your and your target audience’s understanding. Suppose you’re a marketer. If I say ROI, you’ll immediately understand it means Return On Investment. But if I ask a newbie marketer, they might not know what it means.

This concept is applicable in all industries. You and your audience’s clarity on concepts might not be on the same page. So, what should you do in this case?

You should use plain language. Avoid using Shakespeare-level vocabulary. But what if using this difficult jargon is necessary?

You should explain concepts or acronyms to familiarize your customers with them. Remember, if your audience is confused, you might get low-quality responses of no good. They will do more harm than good.

3. Don’t Beat Around The Bush; Give Clear Options

If your survey includes multiple-choice answers, give your audience a clear option. However, if these response options overlap or are unclear, it can lead to a decline in the data quality. Why?

Because respondents may become unsure about what’s being asked of them.

For instance, imagine you’re conducting a customer satisfaction review for a restaurant. You ask, “How satisfied are you with the food quality?” and provide the following choices:

• Very satisfied
• Satisfied
• Somewhat satisfied
• Slightly satisfied
• Not satisfied at all

But choices like satisfied and somewhat satisfied can confuse people. What do you mean by that? It’s not a good metric to measure customer satisfaction.

To ensure high-quality survey results, it’s crucial to craft response options that are distinct and specific whenever possible. So instead of somewhat satisfied, use terms like dissatisfied, etc.

4. Give Freedom To Users To Share Their Feedback

People like options that give them more opportunities to share their thoughts, customer feedback, and reviews with you. Many people use MCQs the wrong way.

They add four options, but what if none fits a person?

They don’t fit in either category. You can do two things:

1. Provide them with no, neutral, or none of the above options.
2. But if you want open-ended answers to the queries, you can add another option, “other.” After that, they can share their feedback via comments.

It shows customers that you’re not forcing your opinions on them. You genuinely care about them and want to know what they think about your brand. It increases customer loyalty as well.

5. Don’t Blindly Rely On Yes/No Question

Screening queries are often used to qualify the leads or customers at the beginning of surveys. So what if someone fails to qualify?

They won’t reach the next step of the survey. Because even if they do, it will not be fruitful for your business. They are not qualified because they aren’t your target audience and don’t know about the product or any other reason. Let’s suppose they fill out the form. Then, it won’t be beneficial because, most of the time, this data is inaccurate.

After properly qualifying the audience, a survey appears. One big mistake people make is using only yes and no responses. But why is that a mistake?

Because people tend to display a social desirability bias towards selecting “yes” or a positive response when presented with a simple yes/no question.

Even if their true opinion leans more towards neutrality, is there any solution to this?

Yes.

To tackle any biased question, offer a comprehensive list of answer choices without any suggestion that one is more favorable than the others.

6. Never Bomabrd Users With Too Many Queries At Once

If you think asking two queries will make people more interested in the query, then you’re wrong. Suppose you’re running an e-commerce store. Instead of asking a compound question like, “Do you prefer shopping online for clothing and electronics?” it’s advisable to split it into two separate questions.

When you combine two questions using

• And
• Or

You introduce another question into the mix. The respondents might get confused because of the queries which will be prominent in their answers.

Simplicity is the key to making a great survey question. So, write separate questions and tell respondents to share information separately.

7. Experiment With Different Question Types

There are several types of questions, such as open-ended and close-ended MCQ queries. Don’t just rely on one form of question.

You should experiment with different types of queries to stimulate the customer’s interest, especially if the questionnaire is extremely long.

It can make the person lose interest in the survey, which means a lost opportunity for you.

Just one tip for this.

Keep your audience curious and interested in the questionnaire.

Your aim is not just to make people interested in the surveys. But also ensure they complete the survey.

For this, you should use different forms of questions.

Bonus Tip: Pilot Test Your Survey

Now, the most important that people often miss is testing your survey.

Before launching your survey on a large scale, conduct a pilot test with a small group of individuals.

Gather direct feedback and insights from the pilot test to refine your queries and ensure they are clear and effective. This small-scale trial run can help you remove any potential issues.

It increases the completion rate, and you can remove common mistakes in advance. Avoid using double negatives. This is important because you can get accurate responses and actionable insights. 

Sample Survey Questions Of Top Companies

Here’s the goldmine of amazing queries you can add to your surveys. Famous companies do these. Some common types of questions are as follows.

• Amazon Product Review: Please rate this product from 1 to 5 stars.
• Netflix Post-Viewing: How satisfied are you with the content you watched on Netflix?
• Google Maps Location Review: How would you describe this place?
• Starbucks Customer Experience Review: Based on your visit, how likely are you to return to this Starbucks?

Conclusion

If the quality of your questions is poor, then the response of your customers will also be poor. It won’t be of any help for you to reach your business goals. You can also make changes to attract potential customers.

So, what do you understand from this?

It’s that good survey questions are equivalent to good business outcomes. There’s no rocket science behind it. It’s as simple as that.

However, you should use a tool to analyze the data gathered from these survey responses. Many people consider doing it manually, but it can be too time-consuming. That’s why you should use software or tools that can save you time and provide exceptional results.

Because you have thousands of amazing surveys. What should you do next?

Use automated tools such as Luminoso to understand customer sentiments and extract this data’s most important key points.

The process is simple. Upload your survey questions in the Luminoso and let it handle the job. It’ll make accurate predictions and customer insights to ensure you’re fulfilling your customers’ needs.