Things to Avoid While Writing the Finest Survey Questions

  • author

    SurveyFoxy

  • posted

    Dec 23, 2019

  • topic

    Academic Research, Market Research

Things to Avoid While Writing the Finest Survey Questions

Surveys are a set of questions prepared to gather the views of a group of people about a product, service or a business and so on.  The responses and collected data, or survey research are often used to assess the thoughts, opinions, and feelings of the respondents. With the advent of the internet, the collection of Customer Feedback or Employee Feedback has transitioned from paper-based to Online Surveys. You can refer to Surveys and Digital Transformation.

There are various survey tools available that will help to develop an effective survey design. Various types of questions can be asked to anyone but the right questions to the right person will give you the most reliable answers that will help you in improving your products, services, and business and in turn Customer Satisfaction. Here is a guide on writing the finest survey questions.

Things to Avoid While Writing the Finest Survey Questions

 

1. No Mandatory or Personal Questions

Avoid having mandatory questions as they may make the respondent feel uncomfortable answering these questions. When adding multiple-choice questions, provide an option to opt-out of the question. Do not ask personal questions unless it is really needed. Even then, do not ask them at the beginning of a survey.

2. Leading Words

Avoid using words that may sound intimidating and controlling such as ‘force’ or ‘prohibit’.

3. Too Many Questions

Asking too many questions will overwhelm and tire the target audience resulting in increased drop-off rates. The quality of the data may also decrease as respondents can become careless with their responses.

4. Jargon and Technical Terms

Respondents may not be aware of certain jargon and uncommon technical terms. Write your questions in plain English, and if you absolutely must use jargon or technical terms, make sure you clearly define them in a way you interpret it so there can be no confusion.

Best Practices for Quality Survey Questions

 

1. Identify Whether the Question is Necessary

We first need to determine what the ultimate goal of our survey is, and make sure that we plan on only asking questions that provide you with the information that you need. Any question that does not, should be removed.

2. Know your Target Audience

Identify your demographics and design questions to address the needs and challenges they are facing. Presenting the right questions to the appropriate audience increases the response rate.

3. Ordering your Survey Questions

Begin with a set of engaging questions to make the survey interesting right from the outset. The order of a question has more of an impact on the result than the particular choice of words used in the question.

4. Keep it Short and Simple

Always make sure that the survey is short, around 10-15 questions. Too many questions may lead to survey fatigue.   Use basic language and simple words to ensure various groups of people can easily understand what you are asking.

5. Providing all Options in Multiple Choice

Make sure to provide all options in a multiple-choice question format and ensure there are not too many or too few options. You can also provide an ‘other’ option to get different responses as well as a ‘prefer not to answer’ option.

6. Use Less Open-Ended Questions

Using open-ended questions may be time-consuming and makes the target audience disinterested. It is simpler to choose answers from a drop-down list, multiple-choice formats, etc.

7. Usage of Templates

There are different pre-made survey templates available online covering various fields. SurveyFoxy provides you with some unique templates that you can customize according to your survey needs. Check out the list of Templates available at SurveyFoxy below:

Improve your survey responses

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SurveyFoxy

The Rybbon Blog - Send eGift Cards and Visa via Email, Marketo, HubSpot and SurveyMonkey - Surveyfoxy

The Rybbon Blog - Send eGift Cards and Visa via Email, Marketo, HubSpot and SurveyMonkey - Surveyfoxy