BYU Marketing Lab

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5 Ways to Create a Survey People Won’t Despise

Marketing Lab

Anyone can write a survey.

Are they always well written? 

Definitely not.

 

Surveys are a popular tool to gain understanding about a certain topic from a large population. However, if poorly crafted, they lose their ability to help us obtain valuable insights. And let’s face it, no one gets excited to take a survey so the least we can do is make them less despicable. 

Here are 5 easy ways to keep your respondents engaged so they provide you with the high quality data you need. And if you do these things well, they might even have some fun in the process!

 

Tip #1 - Avoid leading questions

Tip #2 - Limit open-ended questions

Tip #3 - Power up

Tip #4 - Mix and match question types

Tip #5 - Write clearly 

 

Tip #1 - Avoid leading questions

Leading questions are easy to spot because they use language that influences respondents to give a desired answer. For example,

In this case, there are two major problems with this sentence. First, the sentence leading up to the question could potentially persuade respondents to feel more impressed than normal by the credential. Second, using biased words like “amazing” will have a tendency to sway respondents’ judgment and ultimately skew the data. 

You might think that this is an obvious no-no but there are real examples from big name companies like Delta and McDonalds who have made this very mistake. They actually send out surveys asking for 10/10 customer satisfaction scores. Are they really looking for useful feedback from their consumers or do they just want to cash in a high customer satisfaction score to look good in front of corporate higher ups? Since when did marketing surveys become awful political push polls? By incorporating leading questions into your survey, you miss out on valuable feedback from your customers to improve. Yes, the data will probably make you look better, but who cares if it’s not real? 

How can you avoid asking leading questions? Just make sure to use neutral language and be concise and direct in the way that you form your questions. It’s that easy.

Tip #2 - Limit open-ended questions

This one’s pretty straight-forward. If you ask too many open-ended questions, one of two things will happen. Either respondents will start taking your survey and burn out before they reach the end OR they will open your survey, see all of the blank text boxes, and quit before they even start. 

A good rule of thumb to save you from having a bunch of partial survey responses is to ask a max of 2-3 open-ended questions. Also, keep your survey to 10-15 minutes or less if possible. If you are not offering an incentive to take the survey, you will want to keep it closer to 5 minutes. In a study conducted by SurveyMonkey, they found that respondents took more time answering each question when responding to shorter surveys versus longer ones, meaning that the data is likely to be more reliable. Survey platforms like Qualtrics and SurveyMonkey will give you an estimate of how long your survey will take to complete so pay attention to that metric before you launch. 

Just last month, Qualtrics launched video feedback as a new open-end option to appeal to today’s consumer. Video feedback is effortless for new generations to use and will likely get people to talk more than they would type. You can also gather a whole new level of insight simply by observing emotion rather than just text. Learn more about this new offering by Qualtrics here.

Tip #3 - Power up 

There are so many ways to increase the likelihood that your survey will actually predict consumer behavior. Open-ended and closed-ended questions are nice, but they get old fast and don’t do a great job at mirroring the marketplace. In order to increase the power of your survey, utilize methods such as MaxDiff and choice-based conjoint to help keep your respondents engaged and give you a better idea of what consumers really value when placed in a purchasing situation. Sawtooth Software is a great platform that allows you to easily implement these methods into your next survey.

Tip #4 - Mix and match question types

How many of us have taken a predictable or repetitive survey? Yeah that’s what we thought. Too many people are subjected to boring surveys. There are so many tools out there to help keep things fresh! Why use rating scales over and over when you could spice things up with a Q-sort or ranking or even a heat map? Add some vitality into your survey by getting creative with how you ask questions. 

Tip #5 - Write clearly

Failing to write your questions in a clear manner can really confuse your respondents, leaving you with unreliable data. Put garbage in, get garbage out.

One common mistake we often see is the infamous double-barreled question. Anyone who has ever encountered one of these on a survey knows that they are just plain frustrating. This problem occurs when respondents are asked for feedback on two different ideas or topics within the same question. For example, if a restaurant were to send out a survey to their customers asking,

“How would you rate the quality of your food and  the service received during your meal?”

A respondent could have had a delicious meal but had a very long wait time, barely saw their waiter, and had to ask them several times to bring the check. In this case, they would want to give a high rating to the quality of food but a low one to the quality of service. Since they only have the option to respond with a single answer, the restaurant won’t know which part of the question they are responding to and will be left with useless data. 

Luckily, there is an easy fix to this dilemma! Simply split a double-barreled question into two separate questions. For example, in the case of the restaurant, they would ask,

“How would you rate the quality of food?” and “How would you rate the quality of service received?”

 

That’s it folks! Let’s all commit to applying these tips from now on so that we can save surveys from their negative connotation. 


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