topics for research survey

Explore 151 Amazing Topics For Survey Research (Updated 2024)

Hey everyone! Ready to dive into the world of surveys? We’ve got the ultimate guide “Explore 151 Amazing Topics for Survey Research (Updated 2024).” It’s like having a treasure map for cool and interesting stuff to ask people about. From what snacks folks love to the latest tech trends, we’ve got it all. No need for fancy words – just easy questions and tons of fun.

Ever wondered if more people like cats or dogs? Or maybe what games are ruling the playground? Well, get ready to reveal the answers. These topics aren’t just surveys; they’re your passport to understanding the world around you. So, grab a seat and let’s dive into the awesomeness of surveys – because every question is a key to unlocking something cool.

What Is Survey Research?

Table of Contents

Survey research is a method of gathering data from individuals to understand opinions, behaviors, or characteristics. Researchers use questionnaires, interviews, or other structured approaches to collect information.

This systematic approach allows for the analysis of trends, preferences, and attitudes within a targeted population, providing valuable information for various fields, including social sciences, market research, and public opinion studies.

151 Amazing Topics For survey Research

Top 10 topics for survey research on job satisfaction.

Job Satisfaction Factors in Remote Work Environments
The Impact of Leadership Styles on Employee Job Satisfaction
Gender Disparities in Job Satisfaction Across Industries
Job Satisfaction and Its Relation to Employee Productivity
Influence of Organizational Culture on Job Satisfaction
Job Satisfaction Among Healthcare Professionals
Job Satisfaction Trends in the Gig Economy
Job Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance in the Tech Industry
Job Satisfaction Among Millennials in the Workplace
The Role of Training and Development in Enhancing Job Satisfaction

30 Field Specific Topics on Survey Research

Top 10 survey research topics for marketing students.

Consumer Preferences in Online Shopping: A Comparative Analysis
Effectiveness of Social Media Influencers in Product Endorsements
Perceptions of Brand Loyalty Programs and Customer Retention
Impact of E-commerce Trends on Traditional Retail Shopping Habits
Evaluating Customer Satisfaction with Mobile App User Experiences
Consumer Attitudes Towards Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Products
Exploring the Influence of Celebrity Endorsements on Product Purchases
Effectiveness of Personalized Marketing Strategies in Online Retail
Customer Perception of Brand Authenticity in Marketing Campaigns
Assessing the Impact of Online Reviews on Consumer Decision-Making

Top 15 Methods Of Survey Research

Survey research involves collecting data from a target audience to gain insights into opinions, behaviors, or characteristics. Several methods are employed in survey research, each with its strengths and limitations. Here are common methods:

Questionnaires: Distributing written or online surveys with structured questions allows for standardized data collection.
Interviews: Conducting one-on-one or group interviews enables in-depth exploration of responses and clarification of ambiguous answers.
Telephone Surveys: Collecting data over the phone is a quick and cost-effective method for reaching a wide audience.
Online Surveys: Utilizing web-based platforms for data collection offers convenience and access to a large and diverse participant pool.
Face-to-Face Surveys: Interviewers administer surveys in person, fostering rapport and improving response rates.
Mail Surveys: Sending questionnaires by mail is a traditional method, suitable for reaching specific demographic groups.
Cross-Sectional Surveys: Collecting data from a diverse group at a single point in time helps capture a snapshot of opinions or behaviors.
Longitudinal Surveys: Gathering data from the same participants over an extended period allows for the analysis of changes over time.
Online Panel Surveys: Building a panel of participants who regularly respond to surveys facilitates repeated data collection.
Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs): Adding surveys within experimental designs helps assess causation and control for confounding variables.
Mail Panels: Creating a group of individuals who regularly receive and respond to mail surveys allows for longitudinal data collection.
Drop-Off/Pick-Up Surveys: Leaving surveys at a designated location for participants to complete and return later.
Intercept Surveys: Approaching participants in public spaces, such as malls or events, for on the spot interviews.
Ethnographic Surveys: Immersing researchers in the target environment to observe and understand behaviors and attitudes.
Delphi Method: Repeating surveys with expert opinions to reach a consensus on complex topics.

Choosing the appropriate survey method depends on factors like research goals, budget, and the nature of the data needed. Researchers often use a combination of methods for a comprehensive understanding of their study area.

And that’s a wrap on our journey through 151 topics for survey research. Each question is a little window into people’s thoughts and preferences. We hope this updated list brings you not just data, but insights and a bit of fun too.

Surveys are like conversations with the world, and with these topics, you’re all set to start chatting. Whether it’s uncovering trends or settling debates, your survey adventure awaits. So, go ahead, dive into the questions, discover new perspectives, and enjoy the endless possibilities that survey research brings. Happy surveying, explorers.

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10 Survey Topics and Ideas to Help Learn More About Your Customers

Nemanja Jovancic

Jul 02 2023

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We live in an age where information is power.

But we also live in an age where misinformation and unverified assumptions have never been easier to spread. When making important business decisions, it’s vital to base them on verified information and not your own or someone else’s beliefs.

So, what’s the easiest and most effective way to collect verifiable information?

Do a survey.

Online surveys are quick, simple and efficient way of getting to know your target audience and obtaining feedback about your customers, products, and services.

Still, you need to make sure you’re focusing on the right survey topics. To make things easier, we’re going to share some survey ideas you can use to gather relevant data.

Important note: We won’t just be sharing some random stuff I read online. Here at LeadQuizzes, we’ve helped our users collect over 4.7M emails and gather 73.9M answers using surveys and quizzes, so we’ll share with you some of the things we learned in the process – including survey templates.

But first – what makes a good survey?

Before we dive into survey ideas, let’s clear the air with some base rules. Survey won’t do you much good if it’s not bringing is results – in this case, it’s clear, actionable feedback.

So, ask yourself – how do I intend to use results of the survey? Do I want to learn something new about my potential customers? Do I want to get their feedback on my product or service? So what’s the recipe for

Sticking to one goal – being ambitious is great, but with surveys, keeping thing simple goes a long way. Don’t try to find out everything all at once – a single survey goes for a single goal. Anything more than that will end up in survey results that will be impossible to analyze and turn into actionable info.
Good survey questions – depending on whether you’re trying to create customer satisfaction survey, calculate your net promoter score (NPS), or conduct market research, you will outline the right questions. They should be simple, clear, and unambiguous, allowing you to seamlessly quantify results. The basic survey question types include close-ended and open-ended questions, with close-ended questions being the preferred type. More on that in this chapter.
Keeping it short and sweet – if you want a high response rate keep in mind that respondents have limited time and patience. Top-performing surveys have no more than 8-10 questions, while survey questions should also be short with one or two lines of text.

1. Demographic Survey

Demographic surveys are used whenever you need to obtain some general information about your audience. They have found its application in statistics, politics, business, marketing, etc.

The most common demographic questions ask about age, gender, ethnicity, education, employment, location, marital status, and more. If you’re looking for specific question examples, check out these 100 sample demographic questions you can ask in your surveys.

Or click on the button below to preview and use our demographic survey template.

*To use this survey template, just create an account (or login) , and then select the template from our builder.

2. Market Research Survey

Most successful businesses base their decisions on thorough market research.

Using a market research survey is an excellent way for companies to better understand their prospects and their individual needs, attitudes, preferences, and purchase behavior. That way, you can more confidently identify your target market, learn more about your potential customers, or discover trends in a particular niche.

Click on the button below to preview and use our market research survey template.

3. Net Promoter Survey

NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey is one of the most popular ways of determining customer satisfaction and loyalty. It shows how likely your existing customers or users are to refer your company to their friends, colleagues, and family.

Why is NPS so important? And one of the most common survey topics for successful businesses? Well, it is seen as a very strong indicator of future business growth based on current customer satisfaction.

Click on the button below to preview and use our NPS survey template.

4. Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Another common survey topic is customer satisfaction. Whether you’re a doctor, a lawyer, a restaurant owner, a marketing agency, or a SaaS business, customer satisfaction has to be one of your major concerns if you’re looking to achieve long-term success.

One of the easiest and most effective ways to check the pulse of your customers is a customer satisfaction survey . Here, I’ll present you with a couple of examples of customer satisfaction surveys. You can use the template as it is or customize it to fit your specific needs and goals.

Universal customer satisfaction survey template

Patient Satisfaction Survey

5. Employee Satisfaction Surveys

It is a common saying that a company is only as good as it’s employees. I would add that employee satisfaction should be seen as a pretty accurate indicator of a company’s success.

Why exactly is it important to evaluate employee satisfaction and engagement?

First and foremost, it allows you to learn what you’re doing well and what areas need improvement. Then you can address the issues and make sure your company remains a great place for your employees and customers. It’s the only way your business can grow.

Here are a couple of survey templates you can use.

Employee Feedback Survey

Job Satisfaction Survey

Exit Survey

6. Product Feedback Surveys

Believe it or not, one of the easiest ways to acquire new customers (and keep your existing ones) is to learn what they really think about your products and services. That’s why feedback surveys are one of the most widely used types of survey topics.

To grab a hold of what consumers think about your product, start using the template below.

7. Brand Awareness Survey

Branding and brand awareness are vital to any long-term business success. At the same time, they are often downplayed on account of other marketing concepts that can provide faster and more easily measurable results.

Anyway, before you start any serious work on branding, the best practice is to first determine how popular your brand is among your target audience right now. It’s one thing that can make all your next branding efforts much more effective and easier to monitor.

The best way to learn more about your brand’s popularity is to do a brand awareness survey. Feel free to use the template below.

8. Post-Event Survey

After hosting a seminar, fundraiser, corporate party, or any other event, naturally, you’d like to find out how it went. The best way to do so is by running a post-event survey. It’s one of the most relevant survey topics for event organizers.

Check out these 21 post-event survey questions or click on the template below to use it right away.

9. Website Feedback Survey

Want something more specific? Nowadays, your social media and website are the first thing customers and clients see when they are introduced to your business. Making sure your website is providing an impeccable user experience should be a top priority. One way to achieve that is simply creating a website feedback survey that allows you to understand your website’s strong and weak spots and fine tune them accordingly.

10. Likert Scale Survey

Even if the name may sound unfamiliar, chances are you’ve bumped into this type of survey many times. You know those surveys where you “neither agree nor disagree’ or ‘completely agree/disagree’? Well, that was a Likert scale survey.

This is one of the most popular survey types that allows you to really put a number on perceptions, attitudes, and opinions, without jeopardizing nuance thanks to a plethora of answer options to choose from.

How to Create a Perfect Survey

1. use leadquizzes survey template.

In the chapter with survey topics and ideas we offered pre-made survey templates that are fully customizable. You can change names, images and design, or add survey questions that are relevant to your survey goal.

2. Create a Popping Landing Page

If you are opting for creating a fresh new survey, click here to register and access the LeadQuizzes dashboard. We offer a 14-day free trial so you can really test our survey tool and see if it is working for you and your business.

Keep the landing page simple – add a short survey name, state the purpose of the survey and keep it straightforward, one sentence should suffice.

3. Ask the Right Survey Questions

After that, you can move on to creating survey questions. If you want to dig a bit deeper into this we suggest you check out this super-detailed guide with dozens of survey question examples .

Here we’ll just check out the digest version. As we mentioned earlier, larger portion of your questionnaire should consist of closed-ended questions. They will provide the bulk of quantifiable data you’re looking for. Open-ended questions, on the other hand, require extra effort from survey takers – so use them sparingly, to add context and depth to the numbers.

Closed-Ended Questions

Closed-ended questions have limited and predefined response options to choose from. The answers can range from yes/no to specific number or piece of information. These are some of the most common types of survey questions:

Dichotomous (‘Yes/No’) questions
Multiple-choice questions – these survey questions allow three or more predetermined answers with option for single or multiple answers.
Checkbox questions -this is type of survey question that adds the flexibility of choosing multiple options.
Rating Scale Questions – with this question, respondents have the opportunity to order answer choices based on the level of their preference.
Likert Scale Questions – as we already mentioned, Likert scale measures answers on a scale that goes from complete disagreement to total agreement. The two most common are the 5-point and 7-point Likert scales.

With the right survey software, multiple-choice questions offer a lot of extra flexibility and creativity in design deparment – save for simple text questions, you can enrich your survey with image and video questions.

Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended survey questions offer respondents a blank text box to share their attitudes, opinions and explanations in their own words. Open-ended questions, if dosed properly, can be a great source of valuable qualitative data.

Success of your great survey idea largely relies on asking the right questions. You should avoid ambiguous and leading questions, especially the double-barreled questions . These are the questions that attempt to stick two topics into one question but allow only a single answer. For example: Should the government regulate crypto-industry and create more jobs?

4. Collect answers and analyze data

With LeadQuizzes, your survey can be seamlessly embedded on your website, added to a pop-up window or posted on social media. Thanks to integrations with Facebook Pixel and Google Ads, as well as well-organized report dashboard, you can also keep up with survey response rate and critical drop-off points, enabling you to fine-tune your survey if needed.

There is also the option to export your survey answers and data as a CSV to analyze it using Excel or Google Sheets.

If you’re a small company or brand looking to grow your business, learning more about your existing and potential customers can be vital. As already mentioned, one of the best ways to do so is by conducting a survey.

Above, we’ve shared some of the most common and most relevant survey ideas and topics to cover, alongside pre-made templates we’ve tried and tested. LeadQuizzes also doubles as a quiz maker – with more than 20.000 users and more than 9.5 million leads generated, quizzes could be an untapped resource to shake-up your marketing strategy and engage with your customers on a completely different level!

Start your free 14-day LeadQuizzes trial now!

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Blog Best Of

Survey Ideas For 2024: The Only List You Will Need!

Kate williams.

Last Updated:

11 June 2024

12 min read

Table Of Contents

10 interesting survey ideas + survey question examples
The 30 best survey questions you can ask your target audience

Looking for creative, proven survey ideas and survey sample questions ?

In this article, we’ll take you through:

10 interesting survey ideas and survey question examples
The 5 types of surveys you can conduct in 2024

Click to jump to the section that interests you.

10 Survey Ideas & Survey Questions Examples

You already know how valuable online surveys are for businesses, big or small. But don’t you need interesting survey topics customers can’t ignore? You certainly do, especially in the post-pandemic world of 2024. And that’s what we’re doing here.

Before we get into some survey ideas for you. Here are some survey questions examples for you get started right away!

If you wish to change one thing about our product, what would it be? 😇
On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate us? (0=terrible, 10+excellent)
How would you rate our product? 👀 – Disappointed, Okayish, Good, Extremely good.
What’s your mood right now? 😬 – Picture choice questions
Was this survey useful? – Yes, No.

Here’s a sample survey for you, made with SurveySparrow

Sign up for FREE below and get access to 1000+ survey templates . They will help you generate loads of surveys for every idea that can help your organization.

Please enter a valid Email ID.

14-Day Free Trial • No Credit Card Required • No Strings Attached

Okay, now back to some survey ideas that you can adopt right away.

10 Interesting Survey Ideas

1. a survey to bring change.

2021 changed the way companies run, employees work, and customers think. Now, in this post-Covid era, people are warier about their spending and safety. They need far better quality and health checks to convince them into buying something and are happy to save a lot more for rainy days.

This is why knowing their entire thought process and not just their feedback is crucial. Because they’ve changed, and they would expect the same from your brand.

So, why not conduct a very candid survey to know what they think should change? Believe us, all customers and target groups would regard your brand highly for understanding the need for such changes. And they’ll start trusting it more than ever, which is priceless!

2. A Survey To Just Talk

No survey idea would work if there’s no aim behind it. So aims are important with surveys, but that doesn’t mean they should only be about you, your products, service, and your company.

It can, and it should also be about knowing the customer’s present state. Are they doing well? What’s bothering them the most at present? How can they feel better?

This way, you get to understand if all customers are doing fine, physically and mentally. And if they’re not, several things can be done to help them. The bond between your customers and the brand would only get better if such survey ideas are implemented. And we’ve seen that happening for our clients.

3. A Survey To Get New Ideas

Getting the first success would only increase pressure to keep doing that again and again.

So, in the list of cool survey ideas, this one is all about taking new product ideas from your customers and target group.

Yes, we’re actually saying this! Survey the customers and even those who’re not, to find new ideas that can be developed into products.

We’ve done that here at SurveySparrow with offline surveys , our clients have done the same, and trust us, if the right questions are included, you’ll get a gold mine of valuable data from this.

4. A Survey To Market Better

Instead of letting your marketing team take the entire stress of developing a marketing strategy, why not let the customers pitch in here through surveys? A question to ponder for you.

5. A Survey To Know Why Customers Would Leave

It is one of those survey ideas that won’t work if the survey respondents don’t tick the required boxes.

First, asking someone who has never used your products or services about the reasons for leaving is a big no-no.
Then, you don’t want to conduct this survey on a group that has recently turned into customers .
And last, there’s no point in including churned customers for this survey because they would hardly bother replying.

So, conduct this survey on customers who’ve been using your services for quite some time and understand its functionality completely. Heer are some survey question ideas for this topic:

What would we do or not do that can make you leave us?
Or, if you ever stop using our services, what could be the reasons be?
Or, while using our service, do you get frustrated with some functionality?

Try keeping these as open-ended questions to give customers a chance of expressing themselves. The data collected from this survey would give logical ideas of why your present group of customers might churn away. And having that information is a big deal!

6. A Survey About Understanding Promoters

NPS surveys are great for finding promoters, but you know what… every one of your customers will be a promoter for your brand .

All they want is the fulfillment of their specific needs and requirements. And this is where you can conduct surveys and ask direct questions on how can they be turned into your brand evangelists.

This is one of the most ignored survey ideas according to us. But we’re getting a feeling you aren’t the ignorant types. So, use it. You’ll not regret the decision!

7. A Survey To Understand Workplace Changes

These are good survey topics for employees.

If you’re planning to move back into the office after a lengthy WFH spel l, conducting surveys to understand the required workplace changes is important.

Things aren’t the same as they were before the pandemic and lockdown. Your employees, and even you, must’ve developed certain habits working from home. So, know all about them, bring the right changes, and the office is waiting for you all.

8. A Survey To Optimize The Buying Process

Does the purchase process involve too many steps? Does it take too long? Too much information required?

If you wish to know the answers, conducting a survey becomes a no-brainer.

And based on the survey results, optimizing the purchase path or process would result in less time consumption and would be more value-adding. Sweet, right?

9. A Survey To Evaluate Website

For any business, their website plays a massive role in building brand authority.

And in that case, one of the most interesting survey ideas would be to conduct website evaluation surveys.

By evaluation, we mean the evaluation of information present in the website, placement of that information, and the design & UI of the website.

The website needs to be outstanding and attractive as it’s the first point of contact between the target group and your brand. And you want this first impression to be near perfect, don’t you?

10. A Survey To Check When To Survey

It’s one of those survey ideas that lets your teams understand the best time in the day, month, and year, to contact a customer for surveys, offers, webinars, and more.

As you know, one of the key things about customer satisfaction is to not end up in their email, again and again, i.e., contact them when they’re most willing to talk, and not anytime.

30 Survey Questions That Always Work

You have the survey ideas now, but what about the survey questions? What are some quality survey questions that always bring the right results? We’ll address that here. So, keep sipping on that coffee, and enjoy reading.

Questions For The Buying Process

What specific information would make your buying decision easier?
Is the purpose of your website visit today fulfilled?
What stopped you from making the purchase today/yesterday?
How can we improve the checkout process?
Were you having second thoughts before making the buying decision? If yes, what were they about?
What part of the product did you like the most?
How would you rate the complete buying process on a scale from 1 to 10?
Is there a step in the buying process you think is unnecessary?
Where did you come to know about the features of the purchased product?
Did you have any concerns regarding purchasing from us?

Questions Related To Product

What’s the best feature of [product name] according to you?
What changes could be brought into [product name]?
Does [product name] need an update to include more functionalities?
What aspect of [product name] do you wish to test carefully in the free trial?
What persuaded you to choose our product over our competitor’s?
Which functionality of [product name] do you find challenging to use?
What new product ideas should we be working on?
How satisfied are you using [product name] on a scale from 1 to 10?
Is there any part of the product/service that isn’t working as per your expectations?
What new functionality or feature should we include in [product name]?

Questions On Employee Engagement & Satisfaction

How would you describe working at [company name] in a single word?
Would you refer a friend or a family member for a job here?
On a scale of 10, how would you rate the workload based on the role?
What part of the organization’s culture do you like the most?
On a scale of 10, how satisfied are you working at [company name]?
Are you recognized and appreciated for the work you’re putting in?
What can we do better to improve your satisfaction levels?
When facing a problem, how comfortable are you talking to the manager/superior?
In a meeting, how comfortably can you share your honest opinions?
Do you think the higher management thinks about your engagement and satisfaction levels?

Admittedly, choosing from a question list can be tricky. If you need a category-specific prompt, then you can use our random question generator .

Choose From These 5 Survey Types

To put it crisply, you now know why surveys can’t be ignored, and why it’s better to use new, interesting, and often ignored survey ideas in 2021. But what about the different survey types? Knowing about them is important so your teams can choose the right one at the right time.

You get its importance. So, time to start here. Keep reading. The last bit of crucial information is here.

#1. Online Surveys

A survey type that came with the age of technology. And with technological advancements, online surveys are getting better and better. This survey type or technique requires online survey software to send selected questions to the target audience for their feedback. The best thing about online surveys is they can be accessed from anywhere (literally!) and even without an active internet connection, see offline surveys. Plus, they take far less time to design than any other survey type you’ll see in this section. Impressed, aren’t you?

Now, online surveys again have 6 categories depending on the purpose they’re being used for. Let’s quickly know about them.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) Surveys – NPS surveys help understand the likelihood of your product or service being recommended by the customer. It shows your customer’s loyalty and brand advocacy towards your company.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSAT) – As the name suggests, CSAT surveys help you measure the satisfaction levels of your customers regarding your offerings and brand.

Market Research Surveys – A type of survey that’s conducted before launching a new product or service. It helps understand the market trends and viability of the new launch.

Post-Event Surveys – Used by event organizers to measure how successful their recent event was based on the collected attendee feedback.

Employee Satisfaction Surveys – Employee satisfaction surveys help the HR teams engage and understand employee needs better while measuring their satisfaction levels.

Academic Research Surveys – Majorly used by grad students to support and validate their research with fresh, real-world data.

#2. Paper Surveys

One of the more traditional survey types, paper surveys were extensively used before online surveys took their place. The pen and paper approach is used to collect feedback from the respondents and then analyzed manually (in most cases) to find actionable data. Their sheer volume makes paper surveys an expensive survey type, but they can go anywhere. Just get the questions on pieces of paper, give out pens, and the feedback would be collected then and there. Great for places where technology and online surveys can’t reach.

#3. Telephonic Surveys

Telephonic surveys are used to conduct research and interview people over telephones. Respondents need to answer questions asked over a call and based on the responses, research data is gathered. Another traditional survey type!

#4. One-to-one Interviews

For collecting feedback on a research topic, one-to-one interviews are way better than telephonic surveys. Sure, they also are time-consuming. But the survey taker will get the complete attention of the respondents, which allows them to get better and more thoughtful responses. Most suitable if the target audience is small.

#5. Kiosk Surveys

One of the more modern survey types, Kiosk surveys has a very interesting way of collecting respondent feedbacks. A computer screen at a physical kiosk is used, where customers are requested to take up a feedback survey right after they make a purchase or complete a hotel stay. The responses they give here are more authentic, as their experience is fresh. And that’s what you want, right? Quality data from your surveys.

Bonus Content: Surveys Can’t Be Ignored. Here Are The Top 7 Reasons Why.

Before discussing anything else, it’s important to first talk about the reasons for conducting surveys in your business, and why can’t you ignore them? Let’s jump right in, then.

#1: Know Customers Better

As a leader, if you want to know your customers and target audience better, conduct surveys. This is because any product or service should fulfill the needs and wants of customers, and knowing fully about them is the only way your development team can do that. Conducting surveys helps in knowing their likes, dislikes, hobbies, behavioral patterns, personal information, and even their thought process, which your teams can use to give the right experience.

#2: Gauge Customer Satisfaction at a Glance

This is a crucial point that comes when someone is already your customer. You want to know how happy or satisfied they are with the products, service, and brand. And conducting surveys like the Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSAT) is the easiest way to find that out. Trust us on that!

#3: Find Your Promoters

This is where Net Promoter Score surveys come into the picture. As they let your teams find out promoters for the brand from the existing pool of customers. This helps to pivot, strategize better, and ultimately turn more customers into promoters.

#4: Demystify The Future

Success once is far easier than repeating that. If you want the business to keep growing, you and your teams can’t bask in the glory of just one successful product. Keep building better products. That should be the mantra, and surveys are the best bet here. How? As they let you know how the customers are evolving? What new do they want or like? And what old do they wish to leave? Based on the feedback collected, the product team can upgrade existing offerings or build new ones that can do justice to the customer’s needs.

#5: Customers Leave, But Why?

Here’s a fact, no matter how good your offerings are, some customers would still leave. It doesn’t mean you or the team were doing something wrong. Well, they might be, which is why there’s no harm in conducting exit surveys to find why they left? The responses from the feedback surveys would help identify and rectify the problem areas, which would ultimately mean – Low customer churn in the future. Ain’t that the goal?

#6: Customer Service Team’s Performance

This is crucial to figure since your customer service team’s performance influences customer satisfaction immensely. An Internal Quality Survey (IQS) would do the job here. It’s a metric-based evaluation type survey taken by peers, managers, and leaders to evaluate every customer representative on a quarterly, half-yearly, or annual basis.

#7: Status Of Your Employees

Employee satisfaction has garnered tremendous attention in the pandemic’s wake. And we also think it’s right to focus on the satisfaction and growth levels of your employees. A 360-degree feedback software would help in doing that with ease. Do check it out, as happy employees, bring happy customers, and you want that in your organization!

Time To Get The Ball Rolling

When we first got the idea about this topic, we wanted to focus primarily on survey ideas. But when the research started, it was clear it won’t be enough, rather, it would be incomplete! The reason is, only survey ideas aren’t enough for any team or business to start with it. So, we found the top reasons why conducting surveys is essential for a company’s growth, worked on including some time-tested survey questions, and gave the needed information about the different survey types.

A complete guide to conducting engaging surveys. That’s what we’ve tried to do here, and this is where your and your team’s work starts! Whatever value you’ve taken out of this, it’s time to use it in your next survey.

Like we said at the start, things have drastically changed for everyone post-2020. The way your customers interact with your brand, the way they reply, show interest, and give feedback, everything’s changed. So, what’s the point of conducting the same old surveys when you can go fresh?

We’ll leave you with this thought while waiting for your reply .

Keep surveying!

Product Marketing Manager at SurveySparrow

Excels in empowering visionary companies through storytelling and strategic go-to-market planning. With extensive experience in product marketing and customer experience management, she is an accomplished author, podcast host, and mentor, sharing her expertise across diverse platforms and audiences.

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90 Survey Question Examples + Best Practices Checklist

What makes a good survey question, what is the importance of asking the right questions, 9 types of survey questions + examples, how to conduct surveys effectively, make surveys easier with fullsession, fullsession pricing plans, install your first website survey today, faqs about survey questions.

An effective survey is the best way to collect customer feedback. It will serve as your basis for multiple functions, such as improving your product, supplementing market research, creating new marketing strategies, and much more. But what makes an effective survey?

The answer is simple–you have to ask the right questions. Good survey questions gather concrete information from your audience and give you a solid idea of what you need to do next. However, the process of creating a survey is not that easy–you want to make every question count.

In this article we’ll cover everything you need to know about survey questions, with 90 examples and use cases.

Understanding the anatomy of a good survey question can transform your approach to data collection, ensuring you gather information that’s both actionable and insightful. Let’s dive deeper into the elements that make a survey question effective:

Clarity is Key: Questions should be straightforward and leave no room for interpretation, ensuring uniform understanding across all respondents.
Conciseness Matters: Keep questions short and to the point. Avoid unnecessary wording that could confuse or disengage your audience.
Bias-Free Questions: Ensure questions are neutral and do not lead respondents toward a particular answer. This maintains the integrity of your data.
Avoiding Ambiguity: Specify the context clearly and ask questions in a way that allows for direct and clear answers, eliminating confusion.
Ensuring Relevance: Each question should have a clear purpose and be directly related to your survey’s objectives, avoiding any irrelevant inquiries.
Easy to Answer: Design questions in a format that is straightforward for respondents to understand and respond to, whether open-ended, multiple-choice, or using a rating scale.

Keep these points in mind as you prepare to write your survey questions. It also helps to refer back to these goals after drafting your survey so you can see if you hit each mark.

The primary goal of a survey is to collect information that would help meet a specific goal, whether that be gauging customer satisfaction or getting to know your target audience more. Asking the right survey questions is the best way to achieve that goal. More specifically, a good survey can help you with:

Informed Decision-Making

A solid foundation of data is essential for any business decision, and the right survey questions point you in the direction of the most valuable information.

Survey responses serve as a basis for the strategic decisions that can propel a business forward or redirect its course to avoid potential pitfalls. By understanding what your audience truly wants or needs, you can tailor your products or services to meet those demands more effectively.

Uncovering Customer Preferences

Today’s consumers have more options than ever before, and their preferences can shift with the wind. Asking the right survey questions helps you tap into the current desires of their target market, uncovering trends and preferences that may not be immediately obvious.

This insight allows you to adapt your products, services, and marketing messages to resonate more deeply with the target audience, fostering loyalty and encouraging engagement.

Identifying Areas for Improvement

No product, service, or customer experience is perfect, but the path to improvement lies in understanding where the gaps are. The right survey questions can shine a light on these areas, offering a clear view of what’s working and what’s not.

This feedback is invaluable for continuous improvement, helping you refine your products and enhance the customer experience. In turn, this can lead to increased satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth.

Reducing Churn Rate

Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop using your service or product over a given period. High churn rates can be a symptom of deeper issues, such as dissatisfaction with the product or service, poor customer experience, or unmet needs. Including good survey questions can help you identify the reasons behind customer departure and take proactive steps to address them.

For example, survey questions that explore customer satisfaction levels, reasons for discontinuation, or the likelihood of recommending the service to others can pinpoint specific factors contributing to churn.

Minimizing Website Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors leaving a website after viewing just one page. High bounce rates may signal issues with a site’s content, layout, or user experience not meeting visitor expectations.

Utilizing surveys to ask about visitors’ web experiences can provide valuable insights into website usability, content relevance, and navigation ease. Effectively, well-crafted survey questions aimed at understanding the user experience can lead to strategic adjustments, improving overall website performance, and fostering a more engaged audience.

three people filling out a feedback form animated picture

A good survey consists of two or more types of survey questions. However, all questions must serve a purpose. In this section, we divide survey questions into nine categories and include the best survey question examples for each type:

1. Open Ended Questions

Open-ended questions allow respondents to answer in their own words instead of selecting from pre-selected answers.

“What features would you like to see added to our product?”

“How did you hear about our service?”

“What was your reason for choosing our product over competitors?”

“Can you describe your experience with our customer service?”

“What improvements can we make to enhance your user experience?”

“Why did you cancel your subscription?”

“What challenges are you facing with our software?”

“How can we better support your goals?”

“What do you like most about our website?”

“Can you provide feedback on our new product launch?”

When to use open-ended questions: Using these survey questions is a good idea when you don’t have a solid grasp of customer satisfaction yet. Customers will have the freedom to express all their thoughts and opinions, which, in turn, will let you have an accurate feel of how customers perceive your brand.

2. Multiple Choice Questions

Multiple-choice questions offer a set of predefined answers, usually three to four. Businesses usually use multiple-choice survey questions to gather information on participants’ attitudes, behaviors, and preferences.

“Which of the following age groups do you fall into? (Under 18, 19-25, 26-35, 36-45, 46-55, 56+)”

“What is your primary use of our product? (Personal, Business, Educational)”

“How often do you use our service? (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Rarely)”

“Which of our products do you use? (Product A, Product B, Product C, All of the above)”

“What type of content do you prefer? (Blogs, Videos, Podcasts, eBooks)”

“Where do you usually shop for our products? (Online, In-store, Both)”

“What is your preferred payment method? (Credit Card, PayPal, Bank Transfer, Cash)”

“Which social media platforms do you use regularly? (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn)”

“What is your employment status? (Employed, Self-Employed, Unemployed, Student)”

“Which of the following best describes your fitness level? (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert)”

When to use multiple-choice questions: Asking multiple-choice questions can help with market research and segmentation. You can easily divide respondents depending on what pre-determined answer they choose. However, if this is the purpose of your survey, each question must be based on behavioral types or customer personas.

3. Yes or No Questions

Yes or no questions are straightforward, offering a binary choice.

“Have you used our product before?”

“Would you recommend our service to a friend?”

“Are you satisfied with your purchase?”

“Do you understand the terms and conditions?”

“Was our website easy to navigate?”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Are you interested in receiving our newsletter?”

“Have you attended one of our events?”

“Do you agree with our privacy policy?”

“Have you experienced any issues with our service?”

When to use yes/no questions: These survey questions are very helpful in market screening and filtering out certain people for targeted surveys. For example, asking “Have you used our product before?” helps you separate the people who have tried out your product, a.k.a. the people who qualify for your survey.

4. Rating Scale Questions

Rating scale questions ask respondents to rate their experience or satisfaction on a numerical scale.

“On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate our customer service?”

“How satisfied are you with the product quality? (1-5)”

“Rate your overall experience with our website. (1-5)”

“How likely are you to purchase again? (1-10)”

“On a scale of 1-10, how easy was it to find what you needed?”

“Rate the value for money of your purchase. (1-5)”

“How would you rate the speed of our service? (1-10)”

“Rate your satisfaction with our return policy. (1-5)”

“How comfortable was the product? (1-10)”

“Rate the accuracy of our product description. (1-5)”

When to use rating scale questions: As you can see from the survey question examples above, rating scale questions give you excellent quantitative data on customer satisfaction.

5. Checkbox Questions

Checkbox questions allow respondents to select multiple answers from a list. You can also include an “Others” option, where the respondent can answer in their own words.

“Which of the following features do you value the most? (Select all that apply)”

“What topics are you interested in? (Select all that apply)”

“Which days are you available? (Select all that apply)”

“Select the services you have used. (Select all that apply)”

“What types of notifications would you like to receive? (Select all that apply)”

“Which of the following devices do you own? (Select all that apply)”

“Select any dietary restrictions you have. (Select all that apply)”

“Which of the following brands have you heard of? (Select all that apply)”

“What languages do you speak? (Select all that apply)”

“Select the social media platforms you use regularly. (Select all that apply)”

When to use checkbox questions: Checkbox questions are an excellent tool for collecting psychographic data , including information about customers’ lifestyles, behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, etc. Moreover, survey responses will help you correlate certain characteristics to specific market segments.

6. Rank Order Questions

Rank order questions ask respondents to prioritize options according to their preference or importance.

“Rank the following features in order of importance to you. (Highest to Lowest)”

“Please rank these product options based on your preference. (1 being the most preferred)”

“Rank these factors by how much they influence your purchase decision. (Most to Least)”

“Order these services by how frequently you use them. (Most frequent to Least frequent)”

“Rank these issues by how urgently you think they need to be addressed. (Most urgent to Least urgent)”

“Please prioritize these company values according to what matters most to you. (Top to Bottom)”

“Rank these potential improvements by how beneficial they would be for you. (Most beneficial to Least beneficial)”

“Order these content types by your interest level. (Most interested to Least interested)”

“Rank these brands by your preference. (Favorite to Least favorite)”

“Prioritize these activities by how enjoyable you find them. (Most enjoyable to Least enjoyable)”

When to use rank order questions: Respondents must already be familiar with your brand or products to answer these questions, which is why we recommend using these for customers in the middle or bottom of your conversion funnel .

7. Likert Scale Questions

Likert scale questions measure the intensity of feelings towards a statement on a scale of agreement or satisfaction. Usually, these survey questions use a 5 to 7-point scale, ranging from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” or something similar.

“I am satisfied with the quality of customer service. (Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree)”
“The product meets my needs. (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)”
“I find the website easy to navigate. (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)”
“I feel that the pricing is fair for the value I receive. (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)”
“I would recommend this product/service to others. (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)”
“I am likely to purchase from this company again. (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)”
“The company values customer feedback. (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)”
“I am confident in the security of my personal information. (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)”
“The product features meet my expectations. (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)”
“Customer service resolved my issue promptly. (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree)”

When to use Likert scale questions: You can use these survey question examples in different types of surveys, such as customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys. Likert scale questions give you precise measurements of how satisfied respondents are with a specific aspect of your product or service.

8. Matrix Survey Questions

Matrix survey questions allow respondents to evaluate multiple items using the same set of response options. Many companies combine matrix survey questions with Likert scales to make the survey easier to do.

“Please rate the following aspects of our service. (Customer support, Product quality, Delivery speed)”
“Evaluate your level of satisfaction with these website features. (Search functionality, Content relevance, User interface)”
“Rate the importance of the following factors in your purchasing decision. (Price, Brand, Reviews)”
“Assess your agreement with these statements about our company. (Innovative, Ethical, Customer-focused)”
“Rate your satisfaction with these aspects of our product. (Ease of use, Durability, Design)”
“Evaluate these aspects of our mobile app. (Performance, Security, Features)”
“Rate how well each of the following describes our brand. (Trustworthy, Innovative, Responsive)”
“Assess your satisfaction with these elements of our service. (Responsiveness, Accuracy, Friendliness)”
“Rate the effectiveness of these marketing channels for you. (Email, Social Media, Print Ads)”
“Evaluate your agreement with these workplace policies. (Flexibility, Diversity, Wellness initiatives)”

When to use matrix survey questions: Ask matrix survey questions when you want to make your survey more convenient to answer, as they allow multiple questions on various topics without repeating options. This is particularly helpful when you want to cover many points of interest in one survey.

9. Demographic Questions

Lastly, demographic questions collect basic information about respondents, aiding in data segmentation and analysis.

“What is your age?”
“What is your gender? (Male, Female, Prefer not to say, Other)”
“What is your highest level of education completed?”
“What is your employment status? (Employed, Self-employed, Unemployed, Student)”
“What is your household income range?”
“What is your marital status? (Single, Married, Divorced, Widowed)”
“How many people live in your household?”
“What is your ethnicity?”
“In which city and country do you currently reside?”
“What is your occupation?”

When to use demographic questions: From the survey question examples, you can easily tell that these questions aim to collect information on your respondents’ backgrounds, which will be helpful in creating buyer personas and improving market segmentation.

Checklist pointer arrow on tablet held in hands animation

Surveys can help you accomplish many things for your business, but only if you do it right. Creating the perfect survey isn’t just about crafting the best survey questions, you also have to:

1. Define Your Objectives

Before crafting your survey, be clear about what you want to achieve. Whether it’s understanding customer satisfaction, gauging interest in a new product, or collecting feedback on services, having specific objectives will guide your survey design and ensure you ask the right questions.

2. Know Your Audience

Understanding who your respondents are will help tailor the survey to their interests and needs, increasing the likelihood of participation. Consider demographics, behaviors, and preferences to make your survey relevant and engaging to your target audience.

3. Choose the Right Type of Survey Questions

Utilize a mix of the nine types of survey questions to gather a wide range of data. Balance open-ended questions for qualitative insights with closed-ended questions for easy-to-analyze quantitative data. Ensure each question aligns with your objectives and is clear and concise.

4. Keep It Short and Simple (KISS)

Respondents are more likely to complete shorter surveys. Aim for a survey that takes 5-10 minutes to complete, focusing on essential questions only. A straightforward and intuitive survey design encourages higher response rates.

5. Use Simple Language

Avoid technical jargon, complex words, or ambiguous terms. The language should be accessible to all respondents, ensuring that questions are understood as intended.

6. Ensure Anonymity and Confidentiality

Assure respondents that their answers are anonymous and their data will be kept confidential. This assurance can increase the honesty and accuracy of the responses you receive.

7. Test Your Survey

Pilot your survey with a small group before full deployment. This testing phase can help identify confusing questions, technical issues, or any other aspects of the survey that might hinder response quality or quantity.

8. Choose the Right Distribution Channels

Select the most effective channels to reach your target audience. This could be via email, social media, your website, or in-app notifications, depending on where your audience is most active and engaged.

9. Offer Incentives

Consider offering incentives to increase participation rates. Incentives can range from discounts, entry into a prize draw, or access to exclusive content. Ensure the incentive is relevant and appealing to your target audience.

10. Analyze and Act on the Data

After collecting the responses, analyze the data to extract meaningful insights. Use these insights to make informed decisions, implement changes, or develop strategies that align with your objectives. Sharing key findings and subsequent actions with respondents can also demonstrate the value of their feedback and encourage future participation.

11. Follow Up

Consider following up with respondents after the survey, especially if you promised to share results or if you’re conducting longitudinal studies. A follow-up can reinforce their importance to your research and maintain engagement over time.

12. Iterate and Improve

Surveys are not a one-time activity. Regularly conducting surveys and iterating based on previous feedback and results can help you stay aligned with your audience’s changing needs and preferences.

These survey question examples are a great place to start in creating efficient and effective surveys. Why not take it a step further by integrating a customer feedback tool on your website?

FullSession lets you collect instant visual feedback with an intuitive in-app survey. With this tool, you can:

Build unique surveys
Target feedback based on users’ devices or specific pages
Measure survey responses

Aside from FullSession’s customer feedback tool, you also gain access to:

Interactive heat maps: A website heat map shows you which items are gaining the most attention and which ones are not, helping you optimize UI and UX.
Session recordings: Watch replays or live sessions to see how users are navigating your website and pinpoint areas for improvement.
Funnels and conversions: Analyze funnel data to figure out what’s causing funnel drops and what contributes to successful conversions.

The FullSession platform offers a 14-day free trial. It provides two paid plans—Basic and Business. Here are more details on each plan.

The Basic plan costs $39/month and allows you to monitor up to 5,000 monthly sessions.
The Business plan costs $149/month and helps you to track and analyze up to 25,000 monthly sessions.
The Enterprise plan starts from 100,000 monthly sessions and has custom pricing.

If you need more information, you can get a demo.

It takes less than 5 minutes to set up your first website or app survey form, with FullSession , and it’s completely free!

How many questions should I include in my survey?

Aim for 10-15 questions to keep surveys short and engaging, ideally taking 5-10 minutes to complete. Focus on questions that directly support your objectives.

How can I ensure my survey questions are not biased?

Use neutral language, avoid assumptions, balance answer choices, and pre-test your survey with a diverse group to identify and correct biases.

How do I increase my survey response rate?

To boost response rates, ensure your survey is concise and relevant to the audience. Use engaging questions, offer incentives where appropriate, and communicate the value of respondents’ feedback. Choose the right distribution channels to reach your target audience effectively.

Enhance Your Insights With Richer User Behavior Data

Discover FullSession's Digital Experience Intelligence solution firsthand. Explore FullSession for free

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Survey questions 101: 70+ survey question examples, types of surveys, and FAQs

How well do you understand your prospects and customers—who they are, what keeps them awake at night, and what brought them to your business in search of a solution? Asking the right survey questions at the right point in their customer journey is the most effective way to put yourself in your customers’ shoes.

Last updated

Reading time.

This comprehensive intro to survey questions contains over 70 examples of effective questions, an overview of different types of survey questions, and advice on how to word them for maximum effect. Plus, we’ll toss in our pre-built survey templates, expert survey insights, and tips to make the most of AI for Surveys in Hotjar. ✨

Surveying your users is the simplest way to understand their pain points, needs, and motivations. But first, you need to know how to set up surveys that give you the answers you—and your business—truly need. Impactful surveys start here:

❓ The main types of survey questions : most survey questions are classified as open-ended, closed-ended, nominal, Likert scale, rating scale, and yes/no. The best surveys often use a combination of questions.

💡 70+ good survey question examples : our top 70+ survey questions, categorized across ecommerce, SaaS, and publishing, will help you find answers to your business’s most burning questions

✅ What makes a survey question ‘good’ : a good survey question is anything that helps you get clear insights and business-critical information about your customers

❌ The dos and don’ts of writing good survey questions : remember to be concise and polite, use the foot-in-door principle, alternate questions, and test your surveys. But don’t ask leading or loaded questions, overwhelm respondents with too many questions, or neglect other tools that can get you the answers you need.

👍 How to run your surveys the right way : use a versatile survey tool like Hotjar Surveys that allows you to create on-site surveys at specific points in the customer journey or send surveys via a link

🛠️ 10 use cases for good survey questions : use your survey insights to create user personas, understand pain points, measure product-market fit, get valuable testimonials, measure customer satisfaction, and more

Use Hotjar to build your survey and get the customer insight you need to grow your business.

6 main types of survey questions

Let’s dive into our list of survey question examples, starting with a breakdown of the six main categories your questions will fall into:

Open-ended questions

Closed-ended questions

Nominal questions

Likert scale questions

Rating scale questions

'Yes' or 'no' questions

1. Open-ended survey questions

Open-ended questions give your respondents the freedom to answer in their own words , instead of limiting their response to a set of pre-selected choices (such as multiple-choice answers, yes/no answers, 0–10 ratings, etc.).

Examples of open-ended questions:

What other products would you like to see us offer?

If you could change just one thing about our product, what would it be?

When to use open-ended questions in a survey

The majority of example questions included in this post are open-ended, and there are some good reasons for that:

Open-ended questions help you learn about customer needs you didn’t know existed , and they shine a light on areas for improvement that you may not have considered before. If you limit your respondents’ answers, you risk cutting yourself off from key insights.

Open-ended questions are very useful when you first begin surveying your customers and collecting their feedback. If you don't yet have a good amount of insight, answers to open-ended questions will go a long way toward educating you about who your customers are and what they're looking for.

There are, however, a few downsides to open-ended questions:

First, people tend to be less likely to respond to open-ended questions in general because they take comparatively more effort to answer than, say, a yes/no one

Second, but connected: if you ask consecutive open-ended questions during your survey, people will get tired of answering them, and their answers might become less helpful the more you ask

Finally, the data you receive from open-ended questions will take longer to analyze compared to easy 1-5 or yes/no answers—but don’t let that stop you. There are plenty of shortcuts that make it easier than it looks (we explain it all in our post about how to analyze open-ended questions , which includes a free analysis template.)

💡 Pro tip: if you’re using Hotjar Surveys, let our AI for Surveys feature analyze your open-ended survey responses for you. Hotjar AI reviews all your survey responses and provides an automated summary report of key findings, including supporting quotes and actionable recommendations for next steps.

2. Closed-ended survey questions

Closed-end questions limit a user’s response options to a set of pre-selected choices. This broad category of questions includes

‘Yes’ or ‘no’ questions

When to use closed-ended questions

Closed-ended questions work brilliantly in two scenarios:

To open a survey, because they require little time and effort and are therefore easy for people to answer. This is called the foot-in-the-door principle: once someone commits to answering the first question, they may be more likely to answer the open-ended questions that follow.

When you need to create graphs and trends based on people’s answers. Responses to closed-ended questions are easy to measure and use as benchmarks. Rating scale questions, in particular (e.g. where people rate customer service or on a scale of 1-10), allow you to gather customer sentiment and compare your progress over time.

3. Nominal questions

A nominal question is a type of survey question that presents people with multiple answer choices; the answers are non-numerical in nature and don't overlap (unless you include an ‘all of the above’ option).

Example of nominal question:

What are you using [product name] for?

Personal use

Both business and personal use

When to use nominal questions

Nominal questions work well when there is a limited number of categories for a given question (see the example above). They’re easy to create graphs and trends from, but the downside is that you may not be offering enough categories for people to reply.

For example, if you ask people what type of browser they’re using and only give them three options to choose from, you may inadvertently alienate everybody who uses a fourth type and now can’t tell you about it.

That said, you can add an open-ended component to a nominal question with an expandable ’other’ category, where respondents can write in an answer that isn’t on the list. This way, you essentially ask an open-ended question that doesn’t limit them to the options you’ve picked.

4. Likert scale questions

The Likert scale is typically a 5- or 7-point scale that evaluates a respondent’s level of agreement with a statement or the intensity of their reaction toward something.

The scale develops symmetrically: the median number (e.g. a 3 on a 5-point scale) indicates a point of neutrality, the lowest number (always 1) indicates an extreme view, and the highest number (e.g. a 5 on a 5-point scale) indicates the opposite extreme view.

Example of a Likert scale question:

#The British Museum uses a Likert scale Hotjar survey to gauge visitors’ reactions to their website optimizations

When to use Likert scale questions

Likert-type questions are also known as ordinal questions because the answers are presented in a specific order. Like other multiple-choice questions, Likert scale questions come in handy when you already have some sense of what your customers are thinking. For example, if your open-ended questions uncover a complaint about a recent change to your ordering process, you could use a Likert scale question to determine how the average user felt about the change.

A series of Likert scale questions can also be turned into a matrix question. Since they have identical response options, they are easily combined into a single matrix and break down the pattern of single questions for users.

5. Rating scale questions

Rating scale questions are questions where the answers map onto a numeric scale (such as rating customer support on a scale of 1-5, or likelihood to recommend a product from 0-10).

Examples of rating questions:

How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague on a scale of 0-10?

How would you rate our customer service on a scale of 1-5?

When to use rating questions

Whenever you want to assign a numerical value to your survey or visualize and compare trends , a rating question is the way to go.

A typical rating question is used to determine Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) : the question asks customers to rate their likelihood of recommending products or services to their friends or colleagues, and allows you to look at the results historically and see if you're improving or getting worse. Rating questions are also used for customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys and product reviews.

When you use a rating question in a survey, be sure to explain what the scale means (e.g. 1 for ‘Poor’, 5 for ‘Amazing’). And consider adding a follow-up open-ended question to understand why the user left that score.

Example of a rating question (NPS):

#Hotjar's Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) survey template lets you add open-ended follow-up questions so you can understand the reasons behind users' ratings

6. ‘Yes’ or ‘no’ questions

These dichotomous questions are super straightforward, requiring a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ reply.

Examples of yes/no questions:

Was this article useful? (Yes/No)

Did you find what you were looking for today? (Yes/No)

When to use ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions

‘Yes’ and ‘no’ questions are a good way to quickly segment your respondents . For example, say you’re trying to understand what obstacles or objections prevent people from trying your product. You can place a survey on your pricing page asking people if something is stopping them, and follow up with the segment who replied ‘yes’ by asking them to elaborate further.

These questions are also effective for getting your foot in the door: a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question requires very little effort to answer. Once a user commits to answering the first question, they tend to become more willing to answer the questions that follow, or even leave you their contact information.

#Web design agency NerdCow used Hotjar Surveys to add a yes/no survey on The Transport Library’s website, and followed it up with an open-ended question for more insights

70+ more survey question examples

Below is a list of good survey questions, categorized across ecommerce, software as a service (SaaS), and publishing. You don't have to use them word-for-word, but hopefully, this list will spark some extra-good ideas for the surveys you’ll run immediately after reading this article. (Plus, you can create all of them with Hotjar Surveys—stick with us a little longer to find out how. 😉)

📊 9 basic demographic survey questions

Ask these questions when you want context about your respondents and target audience, so you can segment them later. Consider including demographic information questions in your survey when conducting user or market research as well.

But don’t ask demographic questions just for the sake of it—if you're not going to use some of the data points from these sometimes sensitive questions (e.g. if gender is irrelevant to the result of your survey), move on to the ones that are truly useful for you, business-wise.

Take a look at the selection of examples below, and keep in mind that you can convert most of them to multiple choice questions:

What is your name?

What is your age?

What is your gender?

What company do you work for?

What vertical/industry best describes your company?

What best describes your role?

In which department do you work?

What is the total number of employees in your company (including all locations where your employer operates)?

What is your company's annual revenue?

🚀 Get started: gather more info about your users with our product-market fit survey template .

👥 20+ effective customer questions

These questions are particularly recommended for ecommerce companies:

Before purchase

What information is missing or would make your decision to buy easier?

What is your biggest fear or concern about purchasing this item?

Were you able to complete the purpose of your visit today?

If you did not make a purchase today, what stopped you?

After purchase

Was there anything about this checkout process we could improve?

What was your biggest fear or concern about purchasing from us?

What persuaded you to complete the purchase of the item(s) in your cart today?

If you could no longer use [product name], what’s the one thing you would miss the most?

What’s the one thing that nearly stopped you from buying from us?

👉 Check out our 7-step guide to setting up an ecommerce post-purchase survey .

Set up a survey in seconds

Use Hotjar's free survey templates to build virtually any type of survey, and start gathering valuable insights in moments.

🛍 30+ product survey questions

These questions are particularly recommended for SaaS companies:

Questions for new or trial users

What nearly stopped you from signing up today?

How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague on a scale of 0-10? (NPS question)

Is our pricing clear? If not, what would you change?

Questions for paying customers

What convinced you to pay for this service?

What’s the one thing we are missing in [product type]?

What's one feature we can add that would make our product indispensable for you?

If you could no longer use [name of product], what’s the one thing you would miss the most?

🚀 Get started: find out what your buyers really think with our pricing plan feedback survey template .

Questions for former/churned customers

What is the main reason you're canceling your account? Please be blunt and direct.

If you could have changed one thing in [product name], what would it have been?

If you had a magic wand and could change anything in [product name], what would it be?

🚀 Get started: find out why customers churn with our free-to-use churn analysis survey template .

🖋 20+ effective questions for publishers and bloggers

Questions to help improve content.

If you could change just one thing in [publication name], what would it be?

What other content would you like to see us offer?

How would you rate this article on a scale of 1–10?

If you could change anything on this page, what would you have us do?

If you did not subscribe to [publication name] today, what was it that stopped you?

🚀 Get started: find ways to improve your website copy and messaging with our content feedback survey template .

New subscriptions

What convinced you to subscribe to [publication] today?

What almost stopped you from subscribing?

What were the three main things that persuaded you to join our list today?

Cancellations

What is the main reason you're unsubscribing? Please be specific.

What makes a good survey question?

We’ve run through more than 70 of our favorite survey questions—but what is it that makes a good survey question, well, good ? An effective question is anything that helps you get clear insights and business-critical information about your customers , including

Who your target market is

How you should price your products

What’s stopping people from buying from you

Why visitors leave your website

With this information, you can tailor your website, products, landing pages, and messaging to improve the user experience and, ultimately, maximize conversions .

How to write good survey questions: the DOs and DON’Ts

To help you understand the basics and avoid some rookie mistakes, we asked a few experts to give us their thoughts on what makes a good and effective survey question.

Survey question DOs

✅ do focus your questions on the customer.

It may be tempting to focus on your company or products, but it’s usually more effective to put the focus back on the customer. Get to know their needs, drivers, pain points, and barriers to purchase by asking about their experience. That’s what you’re after: you want to know what it’s like inside their heads and how they feel when they use your website and products.

Rather than asking, “Why did you buy our product?” ask, “What was happening in your life that led you to search for this solution?” Instead of asking, “What's the one feature you love about [product],” ask, “If our company were to close tomorrow, what would be the one thing you’d miss the most?” These types of surveys have helped me double and triple my clients.

✅ DO be polite and concise (without skimping on micro-copy)

Put time into your micro-copy—those tiny bits of written content that go into surveys. Explain why you’re asking the questions, and when people reach the end of the survey, remember to thank them for their time. After all, they’re giving you free labor!

✅ DO consider the foot-in-the-door principle

One way to increase your response rate is to ask an easy question upfront, such as a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, because once people commit to taking a survey—even just the first question—they’re more likely to finish it.

✅ DO consider asking your questions from the first-person perspective

Disclaimer: we don’t do this here at Hotjar. You’ll notice all our sample questions are listed in second-person (i.e. ‘you’ format), but it’s worth testing to determine which approach gives you better answers. Some experts prefer the first-person approach (i.e. ‘I’ format) because they believe it encourages users to talk about themselves—but only you can decide which approach works best for your business.

I strongly recommend that the questions be worded in the first person. This helps create a more visceral reaction from people and encourages them to tell stories from their actual experiences, rather than making up hypothetical scenarios. For example, here’s a similar question, asked two ways: “What do you think is the hardest thing about creating a UX portfolio?” versus “My biggest problem with creating my UX portfolio is…”

The second version helps get people thinking about their experiences. The best survey responses come from respondents who provide personal accounts of past events that give us specific and real insight into their lives.

✅ DO alternate your questions often

Shake up the questions you ask on a regular basis. Asking a wide variety of questions will help you and your team get a complete view of what your customers are thinking.

✅ DO test your surveys before sending them out

A few years ago, Hotjar created a survey we sent to 2,000 CX professionals via email. Before officially sending it out, we wanted to make sure the questions really worked.

We decided to test them out on internal staff and external people by sending out three rounds of test surveys to 100 respondents each time. Their feedback helped us perfect the questions and clear up any confusing language.

Survey question DON’Ts

❌ don’t ask closed-ended questions if you’ve never done research before.

If you’ve just begun asking questions, make them open-ended questions since you have no idea what your customers think about you at this stage. When you limit their answers, you just reinforce your own assumptions.

There are two exceptions to this rule:

Using a closed-ended question to get your foot in the door at the beginning of a survey

Using rating scale questions to gather customer sentiment (like an NPS survey)

❌ DON’T ask a lot of questions if you’re just getting started

Having to answer too many questions can overwhelm your users. Stick with the most important points and discard the rest.

Try starting off with a single question to see how your audience responds, then move on to two questions once you feel like you know what you’re doing.

How many questions should you ask? There’s really no perfect answer, but we recommend asking as few as you need to ask to get the information you want. In the beginning, focus on the big things:

Who are your users?

What do potential customers want?

How are they using your product?

What would win their loyalty?

❌ DON’T just ask a question when you can combine it with other tools

Don’t just use surveys to answer questions that other tools (such as analytics) can also answer. If you want to learn about whether people find a new website feature helpful, you can also observe how they’re using it through traditional analytics, session recordings , and other user testing tools for a more complete picture.

Don’t use surveys to ask people questions that other tools are better equipped to answer. I’m thinking of questions like “What do you think of the search feature?” with pre-set answer options like ‘Very easy to use,’ ‘Easy to use,’ etc. That’s not a good question to ask.

Why should you care about what people ‘think’ about the search feature? You should find out whether it helps people find what they need and whether it helps drive conversions for you. Analytics, user session recordings, and user testing can tell you whether it does that or not.

❌ DON’T ask leading questions

A leading question is one that prompts a specific answer. Avoid asking leading questions because they’ll give you bad data. For example, asking, “What makes our product better than our competitors’ products?” might boost your self-esteem, but it won’t get you good information. Why? You’re effectively planting the idea that your own product is the best on the market.

❌ DON’T ask loaded questions

A loaded question is similar to a leading question, but it does more than just push a bias—it phrases the question such that it’s impossible to answer without confirming an underlying assumption.

A common (and subtle) form of loaded survey question would be, “What do you find useful about this article?” If we haven’t first asked you whether you found the article useful at all, then we’re asking a loaded question.

❌ DON’T ask about more than one topic at once

For example, “Do you believe our product can help you increase sales and improve cross-collaboration?”

This complex question, also known as a ‘double-barreled question’, requires a very complex answer as it begs the respondent to address two separate questions at once:

Do you believe our product can help you increase sales?

Do you believe our product can help you improve cross-collaboration?

Respondents may very well answer 'yes', but actually mean it for the first part of the question, and not the other. The result? Your survey data is inaccurate, and you’ve missed out on actionable insights.

Instead, ask two specific questions to gather customer feedback on each concept.

How to run your surveys

The format you pick for your survey depends on what you want to achieve and also on how much budget or resources you have. You can

Use an on-site survey tool , like Hotjar Surveys , to set up a website survey that pops up whenever people visit a specific page: this is useful when you want to investigate website- and product-specific topics quickly. This format is relatively inexpensive—with Hotjar’s free forever plan, you can even run up to 3 surveys with unlimited questions for free.

Use Hotjar Surveys to embed a survey as an element directly on a page: this is useful when you want to grab your audience’s attention and connect with customers at relevant moments, without interrupting their browsing. (Scroll to the bottom of this page to see an embedded survey in action!) This format is included on Hotjar’s Business and Scale plans—try it out for 15 days with a free Ask Business trial .

Use a survey builder and create a survey people can access in their own time: this is useful when you want to reach out to your mailing list or a wider audience with an email survey (you just need to share the URL the survey lives at). Sending in-depth questionnaires this way allows for more space for people to elaborate on their answers. This format is also relatively inexpensive, depending on the tool you use.

Place survey kiosks in a physical location where people can give their feedback by pressing a button: this is useful for quick feedback on specific aspects of a customer's experience (there’s usually plenty of these in airports and waiting rooms). This format is relatively expensive to maintain due to the material upkeep.

Run in-person surveys with your existing or prospective customers: in-person questionnaires help you dig deep into your interviewees’ answers. This format is relatively cheap if you do it online with a user interview tool or over the phone, but it’s more expensive and time-consuming if done in a physical location.

💡 Pro tip: looking for an easy, cost-efficient way to connect with your users? Run effortless, automated user interviews with Engage , Hotjar’s user interview tool. Get instant access to a pool of 200,000+ participants (or invite your own), and take notes while Engage records and transcribes your interview.

10 survey use cases: what you can do with good survey questions

Effective survey questions can help improve your business in many different ways. We’ve written in detail about most of these ideas in other blog posts, so we’ve rounded them up for you below.

1. Create user personas

A user persona is a character based on the people who currently use your website or product. A persona combines psychographics and demographics and reflects who they are, what they need, and what may stop them from getting it.

Examples of questions to ask:

Describe yourself in one sentence, e.g. “I am a 30-year-old marketer based in Dublin who enjoys writing articles about user personas.”

What is your main goal for using this website/product?

What, if anything, is preventing you from doing it?

👉 Our post about creating simple and effective user personas in four steps highlights some great survey questions to ask when creating a user persona.

🚀 Get started: use our user persona survey template or AI for Surveys to inform your user persona.

2. Understand why your product is not selling

Few things are more frightening than stagnant sales. When the pressure is mounting, you’ve got to get to the bottom of it, and good survey questions can help you do just that.

What made you buy the product? What challenges are you trying to solve?

What did you like most about the product? What did you dislike the most?

What nearly stopped you from buying?

👉 Here’s a detailed piece about the best survey questions to ask your customers when your product isn’t selling , and why they work so well.

🚀 Get started: our product feedback survey template helps you find out whether your product satisfies your users. Or build your surveys in the blink of an eye with Hotjar AI.

3. Understand why people leave your website

If you want to figure out why people are leaving your website , you’ll have to ask questions.

A good format for that is an exit-intent pop-up survey, which appears when a user clicks to leave the page, giving them the chance to leave website feedback before they go.

Another way is to focus on the people who did convert, but just barely—something Hotjar founder David Darmanin considers essential for taking conversions to the next level. By focusing on customers who bought your product (but almost didn’t), you can learn how to win over another set of users who are similar to them: those who almost bought your products, but backed out in the end.

Example of questions to ask:

Not for you? Tell us why. ( Exit-intent pop-up —ask this when a user leaves without buying.)

What almost stopped you from buying? (Ask this post-conversion .)

👉 Find out how HubSpot Academy increased its conversion rate by adding an exit-intent survey that asked one simple question when users left their website: “Not for you? Tell us why.”

🚀 Get started: place an exit-intent survey on your site. Let Hotjar AI draft the survey questions by telling it what you want to learn.

I spent the better half of my career focusing on the 95% who don’t convert, but it’s better to focus on the 5% who do. Get to know them really well, deliver value to them, and really wow them. That’s how you’re going to take that 5% to 10%.

4. Understand your customers’ fears and concerns

Buying a new product can be scary: nobody wants to make a bad purchase. Your job is to address your prospective customers’ concerns, counter their objections, and calm their fears, which should lead to more conversions.

👉 Take a look at our no-nonsense guide to increasing conversions for a comprehensive write-up about discovering the drivers, barriers, and hooks that lead people to converting on your website.

🚀 Get started: understand why your users are tempted to leave and discover potential barriers with a customer retention survey .

5. Drive your pricing strategy

Are your products overpriced and scaring away potential buyers? Or are you underpricing and leaving money on the table?

Asking the right questions will help you develop a pricing structure that maximizes profit, but you have to be delicate about how you ask. Don’t ask directly about price, or you’ll seem unsure of the value you offer. Instead, ask questions that uncover how your products serve your customers and what would inspire them to buy more.

How do you use our product/service?

What would persuade you to use our product more often?

What’s the one thing our product is missing?

👉 We wrote a series of blog posts about managing the early stage of a SaaS startup, which included a post about developing the right pricing strategy —something businesses in all sectors could benefit from.

🚀 Get started: find the sweet spot in how to price your product or service with a Van Westendorp price sensitivity survey or get feedback on your pricing plan .

6. Measure and understand product-market fit

Product-market fit (PMF) is about understanding demand and creating a product that your customers want, need, and will actually pay money for. A combination of online survey questions and one-on-one interviews can help you figure this out.

What's one thing we can add that would make [product name] indispensable for you?

If you could change just one thing in [product name], what would it be?

👉 In our series of blog posts about managing the early stage of a SaaS startup, we covered a section on product-market fit , which has relevant information for all industries.

🚀 Get started: discover if you’re delivering the best products to your market with our product-market fit survey .

7. Choose effective testimonials

Human beings are social creatures—we’re influenced by people who are similar to us. Testimonials that explain how your product solved a problem for someone are the ultimate form of social proof. The following survey questions can help you get some great testimonials.

What changed for you after you got our product?

How does our product help you get your job done?

How would you feel if you couldn’t use our product anymore?

👉 In our post about positioning and branding your products , we cover the type of questions that help you get effective testimonials.

🚀 Get started: add a question asking respondents whether you can use their answers as testimonials in your surveys, or conduct user interviews to gather quotes from your users.

8. Measure customer satisfaction

It’s important to continually track your overall customer satisfaction so you can address any issues before they start to impact your brand’s reputation. You can do this with rating scale questions.

For example, at Hotjar, we ask for feedback after each customer support interaction (which is one important measure of customer satisfaction). We begin with a simple, foot-in-the-door question to encourage a response, and use the information to improve our customer support, which is strongly tied to overall customer satisfaction.

How would you rate the support you received? (1-5 scale)

If 1-3: How could we improve?

If 4-5: What did you love about the experience?

👉 Our beginner’s guide to website feedback goes into great detail about how to measure customer service, NPS , and other important success metrics.

🚀 Get started: gauge short-term satisfaction level with a CSAT survey .

9. Measure word-of-mouth recommendations

Net Promoter Score is a measure of how likely your customers are to recommend your products or services to their friends or colleagues. NPS is a higher bar than customer satisfaction because customers have to be really impressed with your product to recommend you.

Example of NPS questions (to be asked in the same survey):

How likely are you to recommend this company to a friend or colleague? (0-10 scale)

What’s the main reason for your score?

What should we do to WOW you?

👉 We created an NPS guide with ecommerce companies in mind, but it has plenty of information that will help companies in other industries as well.

🚀 Get started: measure whether your users would refer you to a friend or colleague with an NPS survey . Then, use our free NPS calculator to crunch the numbers.

10. Redefine your messaging

How effective is your messaging? Does it speak to your clients' needs, drives, and fears? Does it speak to your strongest selling points?

Asking the right survey questions can help you figure out what marketing messages work best, so you can double down on them.

What attracted you to [brand or product name]?

Did you have any concerns before buying [product name]?

Since you purchased [product name], what has been the biggest benefit to you?

If you could describe [brand or product name] in one sentence, what would you say?

What is your favorite thing about [brand or product name]?

How likely are you to recommend this product to a friend or colleague? (NPS question)

👉 We talk about positioning and branding your products in a post that’s part of a series written for SaaS startups, but even if you’re not in SaaS (or you’re not a startup), you’ll still find it helpful.

Have a question for your customers? Ask!

Feedback is at the heart of deeper empathy for your customers and a more holistic understanding of their behaviors and motivations. And luckily, people are more than ready to share their thoughts about your business— they're just waiting for you to ask them. Deeper customer insights start right here, with a simple tool like Hotjar Surveys.

Build surveys faster with AI🔥

Use AI in Hotjar Surveys to build your survey, place it on your website or send it via email, and get the customer insight you need to grow your business.

FAQs about survey questions

How many people should i survey/what should my sample size be.

A good rule of thumb is to aim for at least 100 replies that you can work with.

You can use our sample size calculator to get a more precise answer, but understand that collecting feedback is research, not experimentation. Unlike experimentation (such as A/B testing ), all is not lost if you can’t get a statistically significant sample size. In fact, as little as ten replies can give you actionable information about what your users want.

How many questions should my survey have?

There’s no perfect answer to this question, but we recommend asking as few as you need to ask in order to get the information you want. Remember, you’re essentially asking someone to work for free, so be respectful of their time.

Why is it important to ask good survey questions?

A good survey question is asked in a precise way at the right stage in the customer journey to give you insight into your customers’ needs and drives. The qualitative data you get from survey responses can supplement the insight you can capture through other traditional analytics tools (think Google Analytics) and behavior analytics tools (think heatmaps and session recordings , which visualize user behavior on specific pages or across an entire website).

The format you choose for your survey—in-person, email, on-page, etc.—is important, but if the questions themselves are poorly worded you could waste hours trying to fix minimal problems while ignoring major ones a different question could have uncovered.

How do I analyze open-ended survey questions?

A big pile of qualitative data can seem intimidating, but there are some shortcuts that make it much easier to analyze. We put together a guide for analyzing open-ended questions in 5 simple steps , which should answer all your questions.

But the fastest way to analyze open questions is to use the automated summary report with Hotjar AI in Surveys . AI turns the complex survey data into:

Key findings

Actionable insights

Will sending a survey annoy my customers?

Honestly, the real danger is not collecting feedback. Without knowing what users think about your page and why they do what they do, you’ll never create a user experience that maximizes conversions. The truth is, you’re probably already doing something that bugs them more than any survey or feedback button would.

If you’re worried that adding an on-page survey might hurt your conversion rate, start small and survey just 10% of your visitors. You can stop surveying once you have enough replies.

User research

5 tips to recruit user research participants that represent the real world

Whether you’re running focus groups for your pricing strategy or conducting usability testing for a new product, user interviews are one of the most effective research methods to get the needle-moving insights you need. But to discover meaningful data that helps you reach your goals, you need to connect with high-quality participants. This article shares five tips to help you optimize your recruiting efforts and find the right people for any type of research study.

Hotjar team

How to instantly transcribe user interviews—and swiftly unlock actionable insights

After the thrill of a successful user interview, the chore of transcribing dialogue can feel like the ultimate anticlimax. Putting spoken words in writing takes several precious hours—time better invested in sharing your findings with your team or boss.

But the fact remains: you need a clear and accurate user interview transcript to analyze and report data effectively. Enter automatic transcription. This process instantly transcribes recorded dialogue in real time without human help. It ensures data integrity (and preserves your sanity), enabling you to unlock valuable insights in your research.

Shadz Loresco

An 8-step guide to conducting empathetic (and insightful) customer interviews in mid-market companies

Customer interviews uncover your ideal users’ challenges and needs in their own words, providing in-depth customer experience insights that inform product development, new features, and decision-making. But to get the most out of your interviews, you need to approach them with empathy. This article explains how to conduct accessible, inclusive, and—above all—insightful interviews to create a smooth (and enjoyable!) process for you and your participants.

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Knowledge Base
Methodology
Doing Survey Research | A Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Doing Survey Research | A Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Published on 6 May 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 10 October 2022.

Survey research means collecting information about a group of people by asking them questions and analysing the results. To conduct an effective survey, follow these six steps:

Determine who will participate in the survey
Decide the type of survey (mail, online, or in-person)
Design the survey questions and layout
Distribute the survey
Analyse the responses
Write up the results

Surveys are a flexible method of data collection that can be used in many different types of research .

What are surveys used for, step 1: define the population and sample, step 2: decide on the type of survey, step 3: design the survey questions, step 4: distribute the survey and collect responses, step 5: analyse the survey results, step 6: write up the survey results, frequently asked questions about surveys.

Surveys are used as a method of gathering data in many different fields. They are a good choice when you want to find out about the characteristics, preferences, opinions, or beliefs of a group of people.

Common uses of survey research include:

Social research: Investigating the experiences and characteristics of different social groups
Market research: Finding out what customers think about products, services, and companies
Health research: Collecting data from patients about symptoms and treatments
Politics: Measuring public opinion about parties and policies
Psychology: Researching personality traits, preferences, and behaviours

Surveys can be used in both cross-sectional studies , where you collect data just once, and longitudinal studies , where you survey the same sample several times over an extended period.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

Before you start conducting survey research, you should already have a clear research question that defines what you want to find out. Based on this question, you need to determine exactly who you will target to participate in the survey.

Populations

The target population is the specific group of people that you want to find out about. This group can be very broad or relatively narrow. For example:

The population of Brazil
University students in the UK
Second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands
Customers of a specific company aged 18 to 24
British transgender women over the age of 50

Your survey should aim to produce results that can be generalised to the whole population. That means you need to carefully define exactly who you want to draw conclusions about.

It’s rarely possible to survey the entire population of your research – it would be very difficult to get a response from every person in Brazil or every university student in the UK. Instead, you will usually survey a sample from the population.

The sample size depends on how big the population is. You can use an online sample calculator to work out how many responses you need.

There are many sampling methods that allow you to generalise to broad populations. In general, though, the sample should aim to be representative of the population as a whole. The larger and more representative your sample, the more valid your conclusions.

There are two main types of survey:

A questionnaire , where a list of questions is distributed by post, online, or in person, and respondents fill it out themselves
An interview , where the researcher asks a set of questions by phone or in person and records the responses

Which type you choose depends on the sample size and location, as well as the focus of the research.

Questionnaires

Sending out a paper survey by post is a common method of gathering demographic information (for example, in a government census of the population).

You can easily access a large sample.
You have some control over who is included in the sample (e.g., residents of a specific region).
The response rate is often low.

Online surveys are a popular choice for students doing dissertation research , due to the low cost and flexibility of this method. There are many online tools available for constructing surveys, such as SurveyMonkey and Google Forms .

You can quickly access a large sample without constraints on time or location.
The data is easy to process and analyse.
The anonymity and accessibility of online surveys mean you have less control over who responds.

If your research focuses on a specific location, you can distribute a written questionnaire to be completed by respondents on the spot. For example, you could approach the customers of a shopping centre or ask all students to complete a questionnaire at the end of a class.

You can screen respondents to make sure only people in the target population are included in the sample.
You can collect time- and location-specific data (e.g., the opinions of a shop’s weekday customers).
The sample size will be smaller, so this method is less suitable for collecting data on broad populations.

Oral interviews are a useful method for smaller sample sizes. They allow you to gather more in-depth information on people’s opinions and preferences. You can conduct interviews by phone or in person.

You have personal contact with respondents, so you know exactly who will be included in the sample in advance.
You can clarify questions and ask for follow-up information when necessary.
The lack of anonymity may cause respondents to answer less honestly, and there is more risk of researcher bias.

Like questionnaires, interviews can be used to collect quantitative data : the researcher records each response as a category or rating and statistically analyses the results. But they are more commonly used to collect qualitative data : the interviewees’ full responses are transcribed and analysed individually to gain a richer understanding of their opinions and feelings.

Next, you need to decide which questions you will ask and how you will ask them. It’s important to consider:

The type of questions
The content of the questions
The phrasing of the questions
The ordering and layout of the survey

Open-ended vs closed-ended questions

There are two main forms of survey questions: open-ended and closed-ended. Many surveys use a combination of both.

Closed-ended questions give the respondent a predetermined set of answers to choose from. A closed-ended question can include:

A binary answer (e.g., yes/no or agree/disagree )
A scale (e.g., a Likert scale with five points ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree )
A list of options with a single answer possible (e.g., age categories)
A list of options with multiple answers possible (e.g., leisure interests)

Closed-ended questions are best for quantitative research . They provide you with numerical data that can be statistically analysed to find patterns, trends, and correlations .

Open-ended questions are best for qualitative research. This type of question has no predetermined answers to choose from. Instead, the respondent answers in their own words.

Open questions are most common in interviews, but you can also use them in questionnaires. They are often useful as follow-up questions to ask for more detailed explanations of responses to the closed questions.

The content of the survey questions

To ensure the validity and reliability of your results, you need to carefully consider each question in the survey. All questions should be narrowly focused with enough context for the respondent to answer accurately. Avoid questions that are not directly relevant to the survey’s purpose.

When constructing closed-ended questions, ensure that the options cover all possibilities. If you include a list of options that isn’t exhaustive, you can add an ‘other’ field.

Phrasing the survey questions

In terms of language, the survey questions should be as clear and precise as possible. Tailor the questions to your target population, keeping in mind their level of knowledge of the topic.

Use language that respondents will easily understand, and avoid words with vague or ambiguous meanings. Make sure your questions are phrased neutrally, with no bias towards one answer or another.

Ordering the survey questions

The questions should be arranged in a logical order. Start with easy, non-sensitive, closed-ended questions that will encourage the respondent to continue.

If the survey covers several different topics or themes, group together related questions. You can divide a questionnaire into sections to help respondents understand what is being asked in each part.

If a question refers back to or depends on the answer to a previous question, they should be placed directly next to one another.

Before you start, create a clear plan for where, when, how, and with whom you will conduct the survey. Determine in advance how many responses you require and how you will gain access to the sample.

When you are satisfied that you have created a strong research design suitable for answering your research questions, you can conduct the survey through your method of choice – by post, online, or in person.

There are many methods of analysing the results of your survey. First you have to process the data, usually with the help of a computer program to sort all the responses. You should also cleanse the data by removing incomplete or incorrectly completed responses.

If you asked open-ended questions, you will have to code the responses by assigning labels to each response and organising them into categories or themes. You can also use more qualitative methods, such as thematic analysis , which is especially suitable for analysing interviews.

Statistical analysis is usually conducted using programs like SPSS or Stata. The same set of survey data can be subject to many analyses.

Finally, when you have collected and analysed all the necessary data, you will write it up as part of your thesis, dissertation , or research paper .

In the methodology section, you describe exactly how you conducted the survey. You should explain the types of questions you used, the sampling method, when and where the survey took place, and the response rate. You can include the full questionnaire as an appendix and refer to it in the text if relevant.

Then introduce the analysis by describing how you prepared the data and the statistical methods you used to analyse it. In the results section, you summarise the key results from your analysis.

A Likert scale is a rating scale that quantitatively assesses opinions, attitudes, or behaviours. It is made up of four or more questions that measure a single attitude or trait when response scores are combined.

To use a Likert scale in a survey , you present participants with Likert-type questions or statements, and a continuum of items, usually with five or seven possible responses, to capture their degree of agreement.

Individual Likert-type questions are generally considered ordinal data , because the items have clear rank order, but don’t have an even distribution.

Overall Likert scale scores are sometimes treated as interval data. These scores are considered to have directionality and even spacing between them.

The type of data determines what statistical tests you should use to analyse your data.

A questionnaire is a data collection tool or instrument, while a survey is an overarching research method that involves collecting and analysing data from people using questionnaires.

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Survey Research: Types, Examples & Methods

Surveys have been proven to be one of the most effective methods of conducting research. They help you to gather relevant data from a large audience, which helps you to arrive at a valid and objective conclusion.

Just like other research methods, survey research had to be conducted the right way to be effective. In this article, we’ll dive into the nitty-gritty of survey research and show you how to get the most out of it.

What is Survey Research?

Survey research is simply a systematic investigation conducted via a survey. In other words, it is a type of research carried out by administering surveys to respondents.

Surveys already serve as a great method of opinion sampling and finding out what people think about different contexts and situations. Applying this to research means you can gather first-hand information from persons affected by specific contexts.

Survey research proves useful in numerous primary research scenarios. Consider the case whereby a restaurant wants to gather feedback from its customers on its new signatory dish. A good way to do this is to conduct survey research on a defined customer demographic.

By doing this, the restaurant is better able to gather primary data from the customers (respondents) with regards to what they think and feel about the new dish across multiple facets. This means they’d have more valid and objective information to work with.

Why Conduct Survey Research?

One of the strongest arguments for survey research is that it helps you gather the most authentic data sets in the systematic investigation. Survey research is a gateway to collecting specific information from defined respondents, first-hand.

Surveys combine different question types that make it easy for you to collect numerous information from respondents. When you come across a questionnaire for survey research, you’re likely to see a neat blend of close-ended and open-ended questions, together with other survey response scale questions.

Apart from what we’ve discussed so far, here are some other reasons why survey research is important:

It gives you insights into respondents’ behaviors and preferences which is valid in any systematic investigation.
Many times, survey research is structured in an interactive manner which makes it easier for respondents to communicate their thoughts and experiences.
It allows you to gather important data that proves useful for product improvement; especially in market research.

Characteristics of Survey Research

Usage : Survey research is mostly deployed in the field of social science; especially to gather information about human behavior in different social contexts.
Systematic : Like other research methods, survey research is systematic. This means that it is usually conducted in line with empirical methods and follows specific processes.
Replicable : In survey research, applying the same methods often translates to achieving similar results.
Types : Survey research can be conducted using forms (offline and online) or via structured, semi-structured, and unstructured interviews .
Data : The data gathered from survey research is mostly quantitative; although it can be qualitative.
Impartial Sampling : The data sample in survey research is random and not subject to unavoidable biases.
Ecological Validity : Survey research often makes use of data samples obtained from real-world occurrences.

Types of Survey Research

Survey research can be subdivided into different types based on its objectives, data source, and methodology.

Types of Survey Research Based on Objective

Exploratory Survey Research

Exploratory survey research is aimed at finding out more about the research context. Here, the survey research pays attention to discovering new ideas and insights about the research subject(s) or contexts.

Exploratory survey research is usually made up of open-ended questions that allow respondents to fully communicate their thoughts and varying perspectives on the subject matter. In many cases, systematic investigation kicks off with an exploratory research survey.

Predictive Survey Research

This type of research is also referred to as causal survey research because it pays attention to the causative relationship between the variables in the survey research. In other words, predictive survey research pays attention to existing patterns to explain the relationship between two variables.

It can also be referred to as conclusive research because it allows you to identify causal variables and resultant variables; that is cause and effect. Predictive variables allow you to determine the nature of the relationship between the causal variables and the effect to be predicted.

Descriptive Survey Research

Unlike predictive research, descriptive survey research is largely observational. It is ideal for quantitative research because it helps you to gather numeric data.

The questions listed in descriptive survey research help you to uncover new insights into the actions, thoughts, and feelings of survey respondents. With this data, you can know the extent to which different conditions can be obtained among these subjects.

Types of Survey Research Based on Data Source

Secondary Data

Survey research can be designed to collect and process secondary data. Secondary data is a type of data that has been collected from primary sources in the past and is readily available for use. It is the type of data that is already existing.

Since secondary data is gathered from third-party sources, it is mostly generic, unlike primary data that is specific to the research context. Common sources of secondary data in survey research include books, data collected through other surveys, online data, data from government archives, and libraries.

Primary Data

This is the type of research data that is collected directly; that is, data collected from first-hand sources. Primary data is usually tailored to a specific research context so that reflects the aims and objectives of the systematic investigation.

One of the strongest points of primary data over its secondary counterpart is validity. Because it is collected directly from first-hand sources, primary data typically results in objective research findings.

You can collect primary data via interviews, surveys, and questionnaires, and observation methods.

Types of Survey Research Based on Methodology

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is a common research method that is used to gather numerical data in a systematic investigation. It is often deployed in research contexts that require statistical information to arrive at valid results such as in social science or science.

For instance, as an organization looking to find out how many persons are using your product in a particular location, you can administer survey research to collect useful quantitative data. Other quantitative research methods include polls, face-to-face interviews, and systematic observation.

Qualitative Research

This is a method of systematic investigation that is used to collect non-numerical data from research participants. In other words, it is a research method that allows you to gather open-ended information from your target audience.

Typically, organizations deploy qualitative research methods when they need to gather descriptive data from their customers; for example, when they need to collect customer feedback in product evaluation. Qualitative research methods include one-on-one interviews, observation, case studies, and focus groups.

Survey Research Scales

Nominal Scale

This is a type of survey research scale that uses numbers to label the different answer options in a survey. On a nominal scale , the numbers have no value in themselves; they simply serve as labels for qualitative variables in the survey.

In cases where a nominal scale is used for identification, there is typically a specific one-on-one relationship between the numeric value and the variable it represents. On the other hand, when the variable is used for classification, then each number on the scale serves as a label or a tag.

Examples of Nominal Scale in Survey Research

1. How would you describe your complexion?

2. Have you used this product?

Ordinal Scale

This is a type of variable measurement scale that arranges answer options in a specific ranking order without necessarily indicating the degree of variation between these options. Ordinal data is qualitative and can be named, ranked, or grouped.

In an ordinal scale , the different properties of the variables are relatively unknown, and it also identifies, describes, and shows the rank of the different variables. With an ordered scale, it is easier for researchers to measure the degree of agreement and/or disagreement with different variables.

With ordinal scales, you can measure non-numerical attributes such as the degree of happiness, agreement, or opposition of respondents in specific contexts. Using an ordinal scale makes it easy for you to compare variables and process survey responses accordingly.

Examples of Ordinal Scale in Survey Research

1. How often do you use this product?

Prefer not to say

2. How much do you agree with our new policies?

Totally agree
Somewhat agree
Totally disagree
Interval Scale

This is a type of survey scale that is used to measure variables existing at equal intervals along a common scale. In some way, it combines the attributes of nominal and ordinal scales since it is used where there is order and there is a meaningful difference between 2 variables.

With an interval scale, you can quantify the difference in value between two variables in survey research. In addition to this, you can carry out other mathematical processes like calculating the mean and median of research variables.

Examples of Interval Scale in Survey Research

1. Our customer support team was very effective.

Completely agree
Neither agree nor disagree
Somewhat disagree
Completely disagree

2. I enjoyed using this product.

Another example of an interval scale can be seen in the Net Promoter Score.

Ratio Scale

Just like the interval scale, the ratio scale is quantitative and it is used when you need to compare intervals or differences in survey research. It is the highest level of measurement and it is made up of bits and pieces of the other survey scales.

One of the unique features of the ratio scale is it has a true zero and equal intervals between the variables on the scale. This zero indicates an absence of the variable being measured by the scale. Common occurrences of ratio scales can be seen with distance (length), area, and population measurement.

Examples of Ratio Scale in Survey Research

1. How old are you?

Below 18 years
41 and above

2. How many times do you shop in a week?

Less than twice
Three times
More than four times

Uses of Survey Research

Health Surveys

Survey research is used by health practitioners to gather useful data from patients in different medical and safety contexts. It helps you to gather primary and secondary data about medical conditions and risk factors of multiple diseases and infections.

In addition to this, administering health surveys regularly helps you to monitor the overall health status of your population; whether in the workplace, school, or community. This kind of data can be used to help prevent outbreaks and minimize medical emergencies in these contexts.

Survey research is also useful when conducting polls; whether online or offline. A poll is a data collection tool that helps you to gather public opinion about a particular subject from a well-defined research sample.

By administering survey research, you can gather valid data from a well-defined research sample, and utilize research findings for decision making. For example, during elections, individuals can be asked to choose their preferred leader via questionnaires administered as part of survey research.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is one of the cores of every organization as it is directly concerned with how well your product or service meets the needs of your clients. Survey research is an effective way to measure customer satisfaction at different intervals.

As a restaurant, for example, you can send out online surveys to customers immediately when they patronize your business. In these surveys, encourage them to provide feedback on their experience and to provide information on how your service delivery can be improved.

Survey research makes data collection and analysis easy during a census. With an online survey tool like Formplus , you can seamlessly gather data during a census without moving from a spot. Formplus has multiple sharing options that help you collect information without stress.

Survey Research Methods

Survey research can be done using different online and offline methods. Let’s examine a few of them here.

Telephone Surveys

This is a means of conducting survey research via phone calls. In a telephone survey, the researcher places a call to the survey respondents and gathers information from them by asking questions about the research context under consideration.

A telephone survey is a kind of simulation of the face-to-face survey experience since it involves discussing with respondents to gather and process valid data. However, major challenges with this method include the fact that it is expensive and time-consuming.

Online Surveys

An online survey is a data collection tool used to create and administer surveys and questionnaires using data tools like Formplus. Online surveys work better than paper forms and other offline survey methods because you can easily gather and process data from a large sample size with them.

Face-to-Face Interviews

Face-to-face interviews for survey research can be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured depending on the research context and the type of data you want to collect. If you want to gather qualitative data , then unstructured and semi-structured interviews are the way to go.

On the other hand, if you want to collect quantifiable information from your research sample, conducting a structured interview is the best way to go. Face-to-face interviews can also be time-consuming and cost-intensive. Let’s mention here that face-to-face surveys are one of the most widely used methods of survey data collection.

How to Conduct Research Surveys on Formplus

With Formplus, you can create forms for survey research without any hassles. Follow this step-by-step guide to create and administer online surveys for research via Formplus.

1. Sign up at www.formpl.us to create your Formplus account. If you already have a Formplus account, click here to log in.

5. Use the form customization options to change the appearance of your survey. You can add your organization’s logo to the survey, change the form font and layout, and insert preferred background images.

Advantages of Survey Research

It is inexpensive – with survey research, you can avoid the cost of in-person interviews. It’s also easy to receive data as you can share your surveys online and get responses from a large demographic
It is the fastest way to get a large amount of first-hand data
Surveys allow you to compare the results you get through charts and graphs
It is versatile as it can be used for any research topic
Surveys are perfect for anonymous respondents in the research

Disadvantages of Survey Research

Some questions may not get answers
People may understand survey questions differently
It may not be the best option for respondents with visual or hearing impairments as well as a demographic with no literacy levels
People can provide dishonest answers in a survey research

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve discussed survey research extensively; touching on different important aspects of this concept. As a researcher, organization, individual, or student, it is important to understand how survey research works to utilize it effectively and get the most from this method of systematic investigation.

As we’ve already stated, conducting survey research online is one of the most effective methods of data collection as it allows you to gather valid data from a large group of respondents. If you’re looking to kick off your survey research, you can start by signing up for a Formplus account here.

Connect to Formplus, Get Started Now - It's Free!

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surveys | July 1, 2020

11 Survey Topics and Ideas to Grow your Business Fast

Daniel Ndukwu

They say knowledge is power.

Do you have the right information about your customers – the right knowledge? Do you know what they want from you and whether your products and services are truly meeting their needs?

If you have any doubt whatsoever or can’t really answer that question then it’s time to explore different survey topics and ideas that’ll help you move from making assumptions to having reliable insights.

Insights that can lead to explosive subscriber growth, brand recognition, and customer acquisition.

Let’s look at the survey topics that’ll allow you to collect useful data that makes all of this possible.

Table of Contents

15 survey topics and ideas for brands

You can send out a survey to ask about almost anything. But how do you know which ones will be beneficial to you right now and which ones are a waste of time?

What kind of survey questions should you ask to get the best information?

It’s simple. Understand your own goals by asking yourself a few clarifying questions then choose the survey that’s in line with that.

What do you want to learn about?
What specific problem do you want to solve?
Do you already have some of the answers you need or are you starting from scratch?
Can you get the information from other sources?
What timeframe do you have to collect and analyze the data?

Once you know the answer to these questions (and any other relevant ones you think up) you can select the perfect survey for the job.

Now, let’s look at the different survey topics and ideas.

1. Demographic surveys

Demographic data is a good survey topic when you want to get a general understanding of who your customers are. With the information you gain, you can make some general assumptions about them.

For example, if your customers are between the ages of 50 and 60, you know they were teenagers or a bit older in the eighties. They’d relate to popular culture references of that time and react with a sense of nostalgia.

Demographic surveys also give you an idea of where your customers are, their spending power, and even family makeup. This will give you insights into the kind of products they may be receptive too, what they can afford, and where you should focus your attention.

The demographic survey questions you use will play a big part in your ability to gather useful information. Avoid questions that are too personal and focus on general ranges instead of exact figures.

For example, you wouldn’t ask them for the birthday of their kids or the exact salary figure. People will ignore those questions or abandon your survey altogether.

2. Psychographic surveys

Demographic information gives you tangible characteristics about your customers, psychographic information gives you intangible information. These are things like attitudes around certain issues, opinions of specific topics, beliefs, values, and more.

Psychographic data can be powerful because, when used properly, it’ll allow you to connect with customers on a deeper level.

For example, people need to wear clothes but they choose clothing brands for a number of reasons beyond price. If you know they believe in sustainability, you can adopt sustainable business practices and ensure they know about it.

When it comes time to purchase clothes, your brand has a better chance because it aligns with their core values. Of course, any changes made should be in line with your core values as well.

Use a psychographic survey when you already understand the demographic characteristics of your audience and want to create tailored messaging for different customer segments.

3. Customer satisfaction surveys

After having a positive experience, 77% of people would recommend that brand to a friend. At the same time, 89% of people have switched to another brand after a poor service experience.

The reward for satisfying your customers is great but the penalty is just as high. Be proactive about understanding where you’re doing a good job and where you’re not.

Customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT) are a great survey idea if you want to actively monitor your service delivery. There are two overarching types which include CSAT and CES (customer effort score).

The one you use and how you use them will depend on your business model and products.

For example, you may use a CSAT right after someone purchases a physical product. You may use a CES after someone signs up for your software product.

Test out when and how you use these survey topics. Whatever method gives you the most insights is the one that you should stick with over the long term.

4. NPS surveys

This survey topic is similar to CSAT surveys but instead of gauging satisfaction directly, it seeks to gauge loyalty. NPS surveys do this by asking respondents how likely they are to recommend the product, service, or brand to their network.

After asking the initial question, depending on the answer, the respondent is asked what you’re doing right or how you can improve. This process encourages people to hone in on the most impactful thing you can do or are doing.

An added benefit of this survey is that you can measure your NPS score over time and focus on improving it. As that score changes, it’s a proxy measure of your entire business’ health.

5. Product research/improvement surveys

Researching a new product is an exciting process. It starts with an idea and a need you’ve identified. Through research into your market, customer interviews, and surveys, you’re able to refine your product, develop it confidently, and launch it.

If you’ve done everything right, it should see some initial success but that doesn’t mean you can rest. That’s where this survey idea comes in handy. Instead of believing your product is perfect (which we know it can never be), you seek to improve it by getting feedback from people who purchased (and didn’t purchase).

What made them skip over the product?
What made them buy?
What could be better?
What is already as good as it gets?

Ask relevant closed ended and open ended questions to get multiple angles and perspectives.

6. Content strategy survey

Are you certain about what your audience is interested in and what they don’t care too much about? Yes, there’s keyword research but it can only take you so far.

Keyword research can’t tell you if people prefer short or long content. It won’t tell you if they like your personal stories. It also can’t shed light on how often you should create new articles or their favorite content format.

A content strategy survey topic will help you fill in the gaps in your understanding and make it possible to better tailor your content.

For example, you could ask:

How often do you want to receive emails
Which content format do you prefer
Are short, bite-sized content pieces ideal or do you prefer longer pieces

There are no hard and fast rules for this survey and you can ask about all aspects of your content strategy.

7. Customer exit survey

No matter how good your product is, you’ll lose customers over time. That may be because they’re no longer using the service, it doesn’t have a key feature, they’ve moved, etc. Instead of guessing what the reason is, ask them.

This is incredibly effective if you have a subscription service and people have to actively unsubscribe. Before they’re able to cancel, ask them a few questions about why they want to go.

If it’s something about cost, features, etc., you may be able to recoup that revenue by showing your roadmap or offering them a better deal.

If you have a product that people buy once every few months, consider reaching out with a survey after long periods of inactivity. The cadence you choose will be tied directly to your product but test out different timeframes until you find the one that makes the most sense.

8. User experience survey

I shared a few shocking statistics (both good and bad) about how the user experience affects customer retention and referrals. Only a small part of the experience is how customers interact with you and your team.

A lot happens when people are interacting with other aspects of your business. This includes when they walk into the store, when they’re navigating your website, what they see (and don’t see) on your product page, the checkout process, hidden fees, etc.

It’s easy to miss these little bottlenecks and wonder why your conversions are low or people don’t stay customers over long periods.

These surveys work best when you send them out when someone is still on your website, in-store, or has recently made a purchase. Here are a few example questions:

Were you easily able to find what you were looking for?
Did the product page answer all your questions?
Once you found the information you needed, was it easy to understand?
What information was missing?
What the checkout process easy to complete?

9. Market research survey

This survey idea should be at the top of your list whenever you want to try out a new venture. It should also be a regular fixture because things are constantly changing. It’s a combination of many survey types and gives you a holistic overview of the entire market.

Put another way, it’s a survey that helps gather data about a target market so you can analyze that information and draw conclusions to create new ventures, improve existing ones, or find new customer segments.

Market research surveys are flexible because you’re not limited to a specific band of questions like demographic or psychographic questions. The problem is that they can get long if you’re not careful about what you ask. The longer it is, the more respondents will abandon the survey.

Get clear on the goals of your survey beforehand then map out the most important questions. Keep it as short as possible to encourage people to complete it or at least answer more questions.

10. Product market fit survey

Once a product is in the market, it may get initial traction but that doesn’t mean it’s ideal for the group you’re targeting. This survey topic is similar to a product research survey but has a narrower goal. It seeks to understand whether your product is currently meeting the needs of the target market.

There’s a simple question that’s asked: “How disappointed would you be if you could no longer use this product?” The answers range from “very disappointed” to “not disappointed at all.” After the initial question, there’s a follow-up question asking for the reason behind the answer.

That follow-up questions, similar to the NPS survey, is where you derive deeper insights.

The goal of this survey is to get at least 40% of your respondents to answer “very disappointed.” At that point, you can say you have product-market fit. While not an exact science, this is a good measure of your progress towards meeting the needs of your customers.

11. Voice of customer survey

This survey topic can be a goldmine of marketing collateral. Time and time again, candid comments from customers have outperformed all the meticulously crafted headlines from expert copywriters.

Why is that?

Because it cuts through all the noise and clearly communicates the value that’s being delivered by your product. A customer is saying why they love the product and it speaks to other people just like them.

This is powerful marketing collateral and when you find a good phrase or statement, you should push it as hard as possible.

They convert.

Voice of customer surveys focus on open ended questions that allow the respondent enough space to make their points or express their opinion fully. You can also test out different value propositions by asking people to tell you:

Why do you use product
Why does that feature matter?
What problem are you solving with X product?
Could you explain how you’d feel if you could no longer use the product?

As you can see, the questions are designed to understand the deeper reasoning behind why someone chose your brand and their feelings toward the products.

If you’ve made it this far then I don’t need to convince you that surveys can be instrumental and growing your business more quickly.

This guide has gone through multiple survey topics and ideas and given you insights about when and how to use them. Those are just tips and tricks, in the end, your goals will determine the surveys that’ll have the biggest impact on your business.

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Make a Survey

Opinion Stage » survey » Survey Questions

16 Types of Survey Questions, with 100 Examples

Good survey questions will help your business acquire the right information to drive growth. Surveys can be made up of different types of questions. Each type has a unique approach to gathering data. The questions you choose and the way you use them in your survey will affect its results.

These are the types of survey questions we will cover:

Open-Ended Questions
Closed-Ended Questions
Multiple Choice Questions
Dichotomous Questions
Rating Scale Questions
Likert Scale Questions
Nominal Questions
Demographic Questions
Matrix Table Questions
Side-by-Side Matrix Questions
Data Reference Questions
Choice Model Questions
Net Promoter Score Questions
Picture Choice Questions
Image Rating Questions
Visual Analog Scale Questions

But before we go into the actual question types, let’s talk a little about how you should use them.

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Ready to create your own? Make a survey .

How to Use Survey Questions in Market Research

First, you need to make sure it’s a survey you’re after. In some cases, you may find that it’s actually a questionnaire that you need (read more here to learn the difference: Survey Vs. Questionnaire ), or a research quiz. In any case, though, you will need to use the right type of questions.

To determine the right type of questions for your survey, consider these factors:

The kind of data you want to gather
The depth of the information you require
How long it takes to answer the survey

Regardless of the size of your business, you can use surveys to learn about potential customers, research your product market fit, collect customer feedback or employee feedback, get new registrations, and improve retention.

Surveys can help you gather valuable insights into critical aspects of your business. From brand awareness to customer satisfaction, effective surveys give you the data you need to stay ahead of the competition.

So, how should you use surveys for your market research?

Try this market research survey

Ready to create your own? Make a research survey .

Identify Customer Needs and Expectations

Perhaps the idea of using customer surveys in this advanced era of data analytics seems quaint. But one of the best ways to find out what consumers need and expect is to go directly to the source and ask. That’s why surveys still matter. All companies and online businesses can benefit from using market research surveys to determine the needs of their clients.

Determine Brand Attributes

A market research survey can also help your company identify the attributes that consumers associate with your brand. These could be tangible or intangible features that they think of when they see your brand. By determining your brand attributes, you can identify other brands in the same niche. Additionally, you can gain a clear understanding of what your audience values.

Understand Your Market’s Supply and Demand Chain

Surveying existing and potential customers enables you to understand the language of supply and demand. You can understand the measure of customer satisfaction and identify opportunities for the market to absorb new products. At the same time, you can use the data you collect to build customer-centric products or services. By understanding your target market, you can minimize the risks involved in important business ventures and develop an amazing customer experience.

Acquire Customer Demographic Information

Before any campaign or product launch, every company needs to determine its key demographic. Online surveys make it so much easier for marketers to get to know their audience and build effective user personas. With a market research survey, you can ask demographic survey questions to collect details such as family income, education, professional background, and ethnicity. It’s important to be careful and considerate in this area since questions that seem matter-of-fact to you may be experienced as loaded questions or sensitive questions by your audience.

Strategize for New Product Launches

Businesses of all sizes can use customer surveys to fine-tune products and improve services. Let’s say there’s a product you want to launch. But you’re hesitant to do so without ensuring that it will be well-received by your target audience. Why not send out a survey? With the data you gather from the survey responses, you can identify issues that may have been overlooked in the development process and make the necessary changes to improve your product’s success.

Develop a Strategic Marketing Plan

Surveys can be used in the initial phases of a campaign to help shape your marketing plan. Thanks to in-depth analytics, a quick and easy survey that respondents can finish within minutes can give you a clear idea of what potential consumers need and expect.

Create beautiful online surveys in minutes

Types of Survey Questions

No matter the purpose of your survey, the questions you ask will be crucial to its success. For this reason, it’s best to set the goal of your survey and define the information you want to gather before writing the questions.

Ask yourself: What do I want to know? Why do I want to know this? Can direct questions help me get the information I need? How am I going to use the data I gather?

Once you have a clear goal in mind, you can choose the best questions to elicit the right kind of information. We’ve made a list of the most common types of survey questions to help you get started.

1. Open-Ended Questions

If you prefer to gather qualitative insights from your respondents, the best way to do so is through an open-ended question. That’s because this survey question type gives respondents more opportunity to say what’s on their minds. After all, an open question doesn’t come with pre-set answer choices that respondents can select. Instead, it uses a text box where respondents can leave more detailed responses.

Ideally, you should ask such questions when you’re doing expert interviews or preliminary research. You may also opt to end surveys with this type of question. This is to give respondents a chance to share additional concerns with you. By letting respondents give answers in their own words, even to a single question, you can identify opportunities you might have overlooked. At the same time, it shows that you appreciate their effort to answer all your questions.

Since quantifying written answers isn’t easy to do, opt to use these questions sparingly, especially if you’re dealing with a large population.

Examples of open-ended questions:

What can you tell us about yourself? (Your age, gender, hobbies, interests, and anything else you’re willing to share)
How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with our service?
What has kept you from signing up for our newsletter?

2. Closed-Ended Questions

Consumers want surveys they can answer in a jiffy. Closed-ended questions are ideal for market research for that reason. They come with a limited number of options, often one-word responses such as yes or no, multiple-choice, or a rating scale. Compared to open-ended questions, these drive limited insights because respondents only have to choose from pre-selected choices.

Ask closed-ended questions if you need to gather quantifiable data or to categorize your respondents. Furthermore, you can use such questions to drive higher response rates. Let’s say your audience isn’t particularly interested in the topic you intend to ask them about. You can use closed-ended questions to make it easier for them to complete the survey in minutes.

Close-ended question examples:

Which of the following are you most likely to read? (a) a series of blog posts (b) a novel (c) the daily news (d) I don’t read on a regular basis
How would you rate our service on a 5-point scale, with 1 representing bad service, and 5 representing great service?
How likely are you to recommend us on a scale of 0 to 10?

3. Multiple Choice Questions

Multiple-choice questions are a basic type of closed-ended survey question that give respondents multiple answers to choose from. These questions can be broken down into two main categories:

Single-answer questions – respondents are directed to choose one, and only one answer from a list of answer options.
Multiple answer questions – where respondents can select a number of answers in a single question.

When designed correctly they can be very effective survey questions since they’re relatively simple questions to answer, and the data is easy to analyze.

Multiple-choice sample questions:

It’s exceptional
Could be better
It’s terrible
Whole-grain rice
Gluten-free noodles
Suger-free soft drinks
Lactose-free ice cream

Try this product survey

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4. Dichotomous Questions

Dichotomous questions are a type of close-ended questions with only two answer options that represent the opposite of each other. In other words, yes/no questions, or true/false questions. They’re often used as screening questions to identify potential customers since they’re so quick and easy to answer and require no extra effort.

They’re also good for splitting your audience into two groups, enabling you to direct each group to a different series of questions. This can be done quite easily using skip logic which sends people on different survey paths based on their answers to previous questions.

Examples of questions:

Do you have experience working with Google Analytics? Yes/no Google Analytics is used for tracking user behavior. True/false Google Analytics has a steep learning curve for the average user. Agree/disagree

5. Rating Scale Questions

Also called ordinal questions, these questions help researchers measure customer sentiment in a quantitative way. This type of question comes with a range of response options. It could be from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10.

In a survey, a respondent selects the number that accurately represents their response. Of course, you have to establish the value of the numbers on your scale for it to be effective.

Rating scales can be very effective survey questions, however, the lack of proper survey scaling could lead to bad survey questions that respondents Don’t know how to answer. And even if they think you do, the results won’t be reliable because every respondent could interpret the scale differently. So, it’s important to be clear.

If you want to know how respondents experienced your customer service, you can establish a scale from 1 to 10 to measure customer sentiment. Then, assign the value of 1 and 10. The lowest number on the scale could, for instance, mean “very disappointed” while the highest value could represent “very satisfied”.

Examples of rating scale questions:

On a scale of 0 to 10, how would you rate your last customer support interaction with us? (0=terrible, 10=amazing)
How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague on a scale of 1 to 5? 1=very unlikely, 5=very likely
How would you rate your shopping experience at our online business on a scale of 1 to 7? 1=bad, 4=ok, 7=amazing

6. Likert Scale Questions

These questions can either be unipolar or bipolar. Unipolar scales center on the presence or absence of quality. Moreover, they don’t have a natural midpoint. For example, a unipolar satisfaction scale may have the following options: extremely satisfied, very satisfied, moderately satisfied, slightly satisfied, and not satisfied.

Bipolar scales, on the other hand, are based on either side of neutrality. That means they have a midpoint. A common bipolar scale, for instance, may have the following options: extremely unsatisfied, very unsatisfied, somewhat unsatisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, somewhat satisfied, very satisfied, or extremely satisfied.

Likert scale questions can be used for a wide variety of objectives. They are great for collecting initial feedback. They can also help you gauge customer sentiment, among other things.

Likert scale sample questions:

How important is it that you can access customer support 24/7? (Choices: Very Important, Important, Neutral, Low Importance, and Not Important At All)
How satisfied are you after using our products? (Choices: Very Satisfied, Moderately Satisfied, Neutral, Slightly Unsatisfied, and Very Unsatisfied)
How would you rate our customer care representative’s knowledge of our products? (Choices: Not at All Satisfactory, Low Satisfactory, Somewhat Satisfactory, Satisfactory, and Very Satisfactory)

Try this Likert scale survey

Ready to create your own? Make a Likert scale survey .

7. Nominal Questions

Also a type of measurement scale, nominal questions come with tags or labels for identifying or classifying items. For these questions, you can use non-numeric variables. You can also assign numbers to each response option, but they won’t actually have value.

On a nominal scale, you assign each number to a unique label. Especially if the goal is identification, you have to stick to a one-to-one correlation between the numeric value and the label. Much like cars on a race track, numbers are assigned to identify the driver associated with the car. It doesn’t represent the characteristics of the vehicle.

However, when a nominal scale is used for classification, the numerical values assigned to each descriptor serve as a tag. This is for categorizing or arranging the objects in a class. For example, you want to know your respondents’ gender. You can assign the letter M for males and F for females in the survey question.

Examples of nominal questions:

What is your hair color? (Choices: 1 – Black, 2 – Blonde, 3 – Brown, 4 – Red, 5 – Other)
How old are you? (Choices: 1 – Under 25, 2 – 25-35, 3 – Over 35)
How do you commute to work? (Choices: 1- Car, 2 – Bus, 3 – Train, 4 – Walk, 5 – Other)

8. Demographic Questions

As its name suggests, this question type is used for gathering information about a consumer. From their background to income level, these simple questions can provide you with deeper insights into your target market. They’re also used as screening questions since they can help you to identify the population segments you’re targeting.

Demographic questions help you understand your target market. By collecting customer data, you can identify similarities and differences between different demographics. Then, you can make buyer personas and classify them based on who they are or what they do.

Some demographic topics can lead to quite loaded survey questions. When writing your demographic survey, try to identify the loaded questions and ask yourself if someone could find the question, the answer choices, or the lack of a certain answer choice offensive. Do your best to phrase them sensitively and respectfully, and if you can’t consider leaving them out.

With every single question that you write, it’s important to place yourself in the shoes of your respondents. If you want to ask students about their income, your response options should range below $20,000 per year, because most of them are probably not making more than that. But if your respondents are affluent, your choices should have a range higher than $100,000.

Examples of demographic questions:

How old are you?
What is your level of education?
What is your marital status?
What’s your current employment status?

Try this demographic survey

Ready to create your own? Make a demographic survey .

9. Matrix Table Questions

If you need to ask a series of questions that require the same response options, you can group them together in a matrix table instead of breaking them into separate questions.

While these bundled questions are convenient, you have to use them carefully. Visually, large matrix tables can seem overwhelming. In addition, online survey questions of this sort aren’t always mobile-friendly. Having too many questions or choices may even trigger undesirable survey-taking behavior such as straight-lining. This is when respondents select the same options without carefully considering each one. Sometimes, they do that because the actual experience feels like a complicated matrix and they just want to finish it.

Example of a matrix table:

How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the following?

Interaction with sales staff

Product selection

Marketing messages

Pricing structure

Then, you can make a brief list of response options. There should be no more than five options.

10. Side-by-Side Matrix Questions

A side-by-side matrix is similar to your regular matrix table in that it allows you to group together questions that require simple response options. However, a matrix table only lets you collect data from a single variable. A side-by-side matrix, on the other hand, enables you to gather data on two or more dimensions.

For example, let’s say you want to ask respondents about the importance of different services and their satisfaction with each. You can group them together in a side-by-side matrix. By organizing questions in tables, your respondents can easily fill out the survey in minutes.

Much like a regular matrix table, you shouldn’t overwhelm consumers. Avoid adding too many variables to your table. Moreover, you should keep the response options short.

Examples of side-by-side matrix questions:

Example of side-by-side matrix:

How would you rate our shopping services?

Identify the variables. They can be customer support, packaging, and punctuality. Next, you should add different dimensions such as importance and satisfaction level. On each table, you should add a similar scale. You can start with 1, which could mean Not Important and Not Satisfied.

11. Data Reference Questions

Use data reference questions to gather validated data against standardized databases. For example, direct respondents to enter their postal code or zip code in a small text box. The value entered will then be cross-referenced with the database. If it is correct, their city or state will be displayed, and they can proceed with the survey. And if it is incorrect, they’ll be asked to enter a valid postal code or zip code.

Examples of data reference questions:

What is your five-digit zip code?
What is your postal code?

12. Choice Model Questions

Choice model questions enable you to understand the essential aspects of consumers’ decision-making process. This involves a quantitative method called Conjoint Analysis. It helps you grasp your users’ preferences, the features they like, and the right price range your target market can afford. More importantly, it enables you to understand if your new products will be accepted by your target market.

These questions also involve Maximum Difference Scaling, a method that allows the ranking of up to 30 elements. This can include product features, benefits, opportunities for potential investment, and possible marketing messages for an upcoming product.

Example of a choice model question:

If you were to buy a sandwich, which ingredient combination would you choose?

Let’s say you want to know about consumers’ bread, filling, and sauce preferences. In your survey, you can give them three sandwich options. You can, for instance, offer three kinds of bread: grain wheat, parmesan oregano, and Italian. As for the sauces, you can make them choose between ranch, blue cheese, and mustard. Finally, you need to suggest three types of filling, for example, chicken, veggies, and meatballs.

Respondents will see unique combinations of these ingredients in your survey. Then, they will have to choose the one that they like best.

13. Net Promoter Score Questions

A net promoter score (NPS) survey question measures brand shareability, as well as customer satisfaction levels. It helps you get reliable customer insights and gauge the likelihood of respondents recommending your company to friends or colleagues (i.e. prospective customers). The scoring model involves a scale of 0 to 10, which is divided into three sections. Respondents who give a 9 to 10 score are considered Promoters. Passives give a 7 to 8 score, while the rest are considered Detractors.

Once you’ve gathered all the data, the responses per section are calculated. Then, the net value of promoters is shown. This type of survey question offers a useful form of initial feedback. It helps you understand why promoters are leaving high ratings so you can work on enhancing those strengths. At the same time, it enables you to determine weaknesses. It illustrates why detractors are leaving such low ratings.

Examples of net promoter score questions:

On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend or colleague? (0 = Not at all Likely and 10 = Very Likely)
Would you encourage friends to work at our company?
How likely are you to recommend (specific name of the product) to friends?

Try this NPS survey

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14. Picture Choice Questions

It’s no secret that people respond to visual content more than plain text. This applies to surveys as well – visual content can boost user experience.

Think of these as alternate questions to multiple-choice questions. Users can pick one or many from a visual list of options. You can use picture choice questions to make your survey more engaging.

Keep in mind, that it’s very easy to unintentionally create a leading question by using images that get a specific reaction from people. For example, if you’re asking about food preferences and one of the images is more attractive than others, people may see it as the perfect answer even if it doesn’t represent their favorite dish because it looks most attractive. So when you’re illustrating a variety of answers with images make sure their quality and attractiveness is similar.

Picture choice examples:

What is your favorite pizza topping?
Which color should we choose for our logo?
What other products would you like to see in our online store?

Opinion Stage has an online survey maker tool that can help you design image-based survey questions in minutes. Choose from hundreds of professionally-designed templates, and tailor them to fit your needs, or design them from scratch.

Try this visual survey

Ready to create your own? Make a visual survey .

15. Image Rating Questions

Another way to incorporate images in questions is through image ratings. Let’s say you want to know how satisfied consumers are with your products. You can display all of the items you want respondents to rate. Under each item, provide a shortlist of options (e.g. very unsatisfied, unsatisfied, neutral, satisfied, very unsatisfied).

You could also use a rank order question to let your respondents rank their favorite products. Simply give them multiple options, and then, ask them for their top three or five favorites. Or you could ask them to organize a series of answers by ranking.

For example, if it’s an employee engagement survey question you could ask your employees to rank a series of office activities from their least favorite to their most favorite. There are many ways to do this visually. Some tools use dropdown menus, and others let you move the answer options around, but the simplest way is to use numbers like in the example below.

Rank order questions should work well on mobile devices. After all, respondents only have to tap on their favorite items to participate.

Example of image rating questions:

What are your 5 favorite desserts?

16. Visual Analog Scale Questions

Another type of scale you can use in a survey is the visual analog scale, which displays your questions in a more engaging manner. For instance, you can use text sliders or numeric sliders to ask respondents to rate the service they’ve received from your company and let them select an image line that best illustrates their answer.

You can also use pictures to depict each option. Smiley ratings are commonly used in surveys nowadays because they’re simple questions, easy on the eyes, and quite fun. Star ratings are also effective survey questions that require no extra effort.

Examples of visual analog scale questions:

How would you rate the overall quality of our customer service?
What do you think of our website’s interface?
How satisfied are you with the way our service works in offline mode?

Create engaging image-based surveys in minutes

The Fundamentals of Good Survey Questions

There is an art to writing effective questions for your survey. Regardless of the kind of survey you plan to deploy, there are a few practices that you should adhere to.

Use Clear and Simple Language

Always choose clear and simple words when writing your online survey questions. In doing so, you can keep the questions short yet specific.

Complex phrasing, too many words, acronyms, and specialized jargon require extra effort and could cause confusion. Make it easy for your respondents to help you. Keep it simple.

Moreover, avoid double-barreled questions , they will frustrate your respondents and skew your customer insights. Here’s an example of a double-barreled question: “Did you find our new search feature helpful and easy to use? yes/no” Such a question might be simple to understand, but it isn’t easy to answer because it covers two issues. How could someone respond if they found the search feature helpful but difficult to understand? It would make more sense to separate it into two questions, i.e. did you find the new search feature helpful? Was the new search feature easy for you to use?

Focus on the Consumer

Make the survey engaging. Use the second-person (i.e., ‘you’ format) to address your respondents directly, and use the first-person (i.e., ‘we’ format) to refer to your company. This makes the survey more personal and helps respondents recall prior experiences with your company. In turn, it leads to quicker and more accurate answers.

Ask for Feedback

Get initial feedback from external people that fit the profile of your average user before sending your survey out. It’s like a user testing tool, you need someone who isn’t you to take a look and tell you if your survey is clear and friendly.

Require Minimal Effort to Answer

There’s no reason to ask people questions that aren’t essential to you. Ask people questions that really matter to you, and try to keep it down to the minimum number, so as not to waste their time. The more succinct a survey is, the more likely a respondent is to complete it. So, let them know that you value their time by designing a survey they can finish within minutes.

Stay Free From Bias

Survey question mistake #1 is to ask leading or biased questions. Don’t plant opinions in your respondents’ heads before they can formulate their own. Don’t ask people questions like “How good was your in-store experience today?” Phrase it in a neutral way like “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your in-store experience?”

Keep the Purpose of the Survey Vague

Sometimes, respondents have a tendency to give you the answers you want to hear. One of the simplest ways to prevent that is by keeping the purpose of your survey vague. Instead, you should give a general description of your survey.

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Sample Survey Questions

Below are sample questions for different market research needs. You can use many of them as close-ended questions as well as open questions, depending on your need and preference.

Brand Awareness Questions

When was the last time you used (a type of product)?
What brands come to mind as your top choice when you think of buying this product type?
What factors do you consider when selecting a vendor? (rank by importance)
Which of the following brands have you heard of? (please select all that apply)
Where have you seen or heard of our brand in the last three months? (please select all that apply)
How often have you heard people talking about our brand in the past three months?
How familiar are you with our company?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend?

Customer Demographic Questions

What gender do you identify as?
Where were you born?
Are you married?
What is your annual household income?
Do you support children under the age of 18?
How many children under the age of 18 reside in your household?
What category best describes your employment status?
Which general geographic area of the state do you reside in?
What is your current employment status?
Which of the following languages can you speak fluently?

Brand & Marketing Feedback Questions

Have you purchased from our company before?
How long have you been a customer?
Which best describes your latest experience with our brand? (please select all that apply)
Which of the following attributes do you associate with our brand? (please select all that apply)
What kind of feelings do you associate with our brand?
Which of these marketing messages represents us best in your opinion?
How would you rate your level of emotional attachment to our brand?
What five words would you use to describe our brand to a friend or colleague?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend or colleague? (1 being Not at All Likely at 10 being Extremely Likely)

Product & Package Testing Questions

What is your first impression of the product?
How important are the following features to you?
How would you rate the product’s quality?
If the product was already available, how likely are you to purchase it?
How likely are you to replace an old product with this one?
How likely would you recommend this product to a friend or colleague?
What did you like best about this product?
What are the features that you want to see improved?
Based on the value for money, how would you rate this product compared to the competition?
What is your first impression of the product packaging?
How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the following features? (Visual appeal, Quality, and Price)
How similar or different is the packaging from the competition?
Does the packaging have too little or too much information?
How likely are you to purchase the product based on its packaging?
What did you like best about the packaging?
What did you dislike about the packaging?
How would you like the packaging to be improved?

Pricing Strategy Testing Questions

How often do you purchase this type of product?
What brands do you usually purchase? (Please select all that apply).
On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with the pricing of this type of product? (1 being Not at All Satisfied at 5 being Extremely Satisfied)
What is the ideal price for this type of product?
What price range would make you consider that the product is too expensive?
At what price is the product too cheap that its quality is questionable?
How much does the price for our product compare to other products on the market?
If the product was available, how likely would you be to purchase it?

Customer Satisfaction Questions

How would you rate the following products/services at (name of company)?
Which of the following attributes would you use to describe our product/service? Please select all that apply.
Would you recommend our company to a friend or colleague? (1 being Very Unlikely and 10 being Very Likely)
How responsive has our support team been to your questions and concerns?
How likely are you to purchase from our company again?
What other comments, concerns, or questions do you have for us?

Brand Performance Questions

When was the last time you used this type of product?
When you think of our brand, what words come to mind?
Which of the following are important to your decision-making process?
How well do our products perform based on the following categories? (Price, Quality, Design, etc.)
How well does our product meet your needs?
What was missing or disappointing about your experience with our brand?
What did you like most about your experience with our brand?
How can we improve your experience?

Customer Behavior Questions

In the household, are you the primary decision maker when it comes to purchasing this type of product?
When was the last time you purchased this product type?
How do you find out about brands offering this product type? Please select all that apply.
When you think of this product type, which of the following are the top three brands that come to mind?
How much of your purchasing decisions are influenced by social media?

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How to Improve Survey Response Rates

Every market research survey needs to be designed carefully in order to drive higher response rates. As a result, you can acquire the right data to inform the decision-making process.

Here are a few survey ideas to boost response rates:

Make It Personal

Write a survey as if it’s a conversation between you and your respondents. For example, use first-person pronouns to make your surveys feel more personal and customer-centric. In addition, stick with simple and specific language to better connect with respondents. Simply put, write your questions as you’d use them in a conversation with consumers.

Make It Engaging

Gathering data from consumers is essential to any business, but market research surveys don’t have to be dull. You can engage and connect with respondents on a human level through an interactive survey. As a result, you can obtain thorough responses and maximize the number of respondents that complete the entire survey.

Don’t Waste Their Time

No one wants to answer a survey with 50 questions because it takes too long to complete. Hence, you should narrow down your list to the most important ones. Only ask questions that will lead to actionable insights. As for the rest, you can get rid of them.

Offer Incentives

There are two types of incentives you can offer: monetary or non-monetary. Either way, you need to make sure that the incentive provides value to your target audience. In addition, you must choose between promised or prepaid incentives. In other words, you have to decide if you want to offer everyone or a small group of people some incentives.

Providing respondents with incentives to finish the survey can increase response rates—but not always. Customer satisfaction surveys, for example, won’t always need incentives because it might affect the quality of the results.

Make It Responsive

Perhaps the easiest way to gain respondents is to make your surveys responsive and mobile-optimized. In doing so, it will perform well and look amazing on all devices. It should also enable you to reach consumers during their daily commute or lunch break. Thus, make sure your survey is optimized for different kinds of devices, especially for mobile.

Offer Surveys in Multiple Channels

If a survey is optimized for all device types, it should be easily accessed on social media. So, take advantage of your platforms and share your survey on different social media channels to increase participation rates.

Designing surveys doesn’t have to be challenging. On the contrary, you can easily create interactive surveys with Opinion Stage. Create a survey from scratch, or choose one of our many professionally-made templates to complete it within minutes. Through Opinion Stage, you can drive higher response rates and evaluate results from a powerful analytics dashboard.

It’s important to be familiar with the different types of survey questions and when to use them. Getting to know each survey question type will help you improve your research. Not to mention, you can gain high-quality data when you design a survey with the right types of questions .

In addition, you should leverage the right tool to create engaging surveys in minutes. With an online survey maker like Opinion Stage, you can customize your surveys to fit your brand image. Or, you can choose from professionally-made templates. Either way, it can help boost response rates.

Last but not least, check your survey design before deploying it. Make sure to see what your survey will look like to your respondents. See opportunities for improvement, then apply the necessary changes.

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Survey Research — Types, Methods and Example Questions

Survey research The world of research is vast and complex, but with the right tools and understanding, it's an open field of discovery. Welcome to a journey into the heart of survey research. What is survey research? Survey research is the lens through which we view the opinions, behaviors, and experiences of a population. Think of it as the research world's detective, cleverly sleuthing out the truths hidden beneath layers of human complexity. Why is survey research important? Survey research is a Swiss Army Knife in a researcher's toolbox. It’s adaptable, reliable, and incredibly versatile, but its real power? It gives voice to the silent majority. Whether it's understanding customer preferences or assessing the impact of a social policy, survey research is the bridge between unanswered questions and insightful data. Let's embark on this exploration, armed with the spirit of openness, a sprinkle of curiosity, and the thirst for making knowledge accessible. As we journey further into the realm of survey research, we'll delve deeper into the diverse types of surveys, innovative data collection methods, and the rewards and challenges that come with them. Types of survey research Survey research is like an artist's palette, offering a variety of types to suit your unique research needs. Each type paints a different picture, giving us fascinating insights into the world around us. Cross-Sectional Surveys: Capture a snapshot of a population at a specific moment in time. They're your trusty Polaroid camera, freezing a moment for analysis and understanding. Longitudinal Surveys: Track changes over time, much like a time-lapse video. They help to identify trends and patterns, offering a dynamic perspective of your subject. Descriptive Surveys: Draw a detailed picture of the current state of affairs. They're your magnifying glass, examining the prevalence of a phenomenon or attitudes within a group. Analytical Surveys: Deep dive into the reasons behind certain outcomes. They're the research world's version of Sherlock Holmes, unraveling the complex web of cause and effect. But, what method should you choose for data collection? The plot thickens, doesn't it? Let's unravel this mystery in our next section. Survey research and data collection methods Data collection in survey research is an art form, and there's no one-size-fits-all method. Think of it as your paintbrush, each stroke represents a different way of capturing data. Online Surveys: In the digital age, online surveys have surged in popularity. They're fast, cost-effective, and can reach a global audience. But like a mysterious online acquaintance, respondents may not always be who they say they are. Mail Surveys: Like a postcard from a distant friend, mail surveys have a certain charm. They're great for reaching respondents without internet access. However, they’re slower and have lower response rates. They’re a test of patience and persistence. Telephone Surveys: With the sound of a ringing phone, the human element enters the picture. Great for reaching a diverse audience, they bring a touch of personal connection. But, remember, not all are fans of unsolicited calls. Face-to-Face Surveys: These are the heart-to-heart conversations of the survey world. While they require more resources, they're the gold standard for in-depth, high-quality data. As we journey further, let’s weigh the pros and cons of survey research. Advantages and disadvantages of survey research Every hero has its strengths and weaknesses, and survey research is no exception. Let's unwrap the gift box of survey research to see what lies inside. Advantages: Versatility: Like a superhero with multiple powers, surveys can be adapted to different topics, audiences, and research needs. Accessibility: With online surveys, geographical boundaries dissolve. We can reach out to the world from our living room. Anonymity: Like a confessional booth, surveys allow respondents to share their views without fear of judgment. Disadvantages: Response Bias: Ever met someone who says what you want to hear? Survey respondents can be like that too. Limited Depth: Like a puddle after a rainstorm, some surveys only skim the surface of complex issues. Nonresponse: Sometimes, potential respondents play hard to get, skewing the data. Survey research may have its challenges, but it also presents opportunities to learn and grow. As we forge ahead on our journey, we dive into the design process of survey research. Limitations of survey research Every research method has its limitations, like bumps on the road to discovery. But don't worry, with the right approach, these challenges become opportunities for growth. Misinterpretation: Sometimes, respondents might misunderstand your questions, like a badly translated novel. To overcome this, keep your questions simple and clear. Social Desirability Bias: People often want to present themselves in the best light. They might answer questions in a way that portrays them positively, even if it's not entirely accurate. Overcome this by ensuring anonymity and emphasizing honesty. Sample Representation: If your survey sample isn't representative of the population you're studying, it can skew your results. Aiming for a diverse sample can mitigate this. Now that we're aware of the limitations let's delve into the world of survey design. {loadmoduleid 430} Survey research design Designing a survey is like crafting a roadmap to discovery. It's an intricate process that involves careful planning, innovative strategies, and a deep understanding of your research goals. Let's get started. Approach and Strategy Your approach and strategy are the compasses guiding your survey research. Clear objectives, defined research questions, and an understanding of your target audience lay the foundation for a successful survey. Panel The panel is the heartbeat of your survey, the respondents who breathe life into your research. Selecting a representative panel ensures your research is accurate and inclusive. 9 Tips on Building the Perfect Survey Research Questionnaire Keep It Simple: Clear and straightforward questions lead to accurate responses. Make It Relevant: Ensure every question ties back to your research objectives. Order Matters: Start with easy questions to build rapport and save sensitive ones for later. Avoid Double-Barreled Questions: Stick to one idea per question. Offer a Balanced Scale: For rating scales, provide an equal number of positive and negative options. Provide a ‘Don't Know’ Option: This prevents guessing and keeps your data accurate. Pretest Your Survey: A pilot run helps you spot any issues before the final launch. Keep It Short: Respect your respondents' time. Make It Engaging: Keep your respondents interested with a mix of question types. Survey research examples and questions Examples serve as a bridge connecting theoretical concepts to real-world scenarios. Let's consider a few practical examples of survey research across various domains. User Experience (UX) Imagine being a UX designer at a budding tech start-up. Your app is gaining traction, but to keep your user base growing and engaged, you must ensure that your app's UX is top-notch. In this case, a well-designed survey could be a beacon, guiding you toward understanding user behavior, preferences, and pain points. Here's an example of how such a survey could look: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the ease of navigating our app?" "How often do you encounter difficulties while using our app?" "What features do you use most frequently in our app?" "What improvements would you suggest for our app?" "What features would you like to see in future updates?" This line of questioning, while straightforward, provides invaluable insights. It enables the UX designer to identify strengths to capitalize on and weaknesses to improve, ultimately leading to a product that resonates with users. Psychology and Ethics in survey research The realm of survey research is not just about data and numbers, but it's also about understanding human behavior and treating respondents ethically. Psychology: In-depth understanding of cognitive biases and social dynamics can profoundly influence survey design. Let's take the 'Recency Effect,' a psychological principle stating that people tend to remember recent events more vividly than those in the past. While framing questions about user experiences, this insight could be invaluable. For example, a question like "Can you recall an instance in the past week when our customer service exceeded your expectations?" is likely to fetch more accurate responses than asking about an event several months ago. Ethics: On the other hand, maintaining privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent is more than ethical - it's fundamental to the integrity of the research process. Imagine conducting a sensitive survey about workplace culture. Ensuring respondents that their responses will remain confidential and anonymous can encourage more honest responses. An introductory note stating these assurances, along with a clear outline of the survey's purpose, can help build trust with your respondents. Survey research software In the age of digital information, survey research software has become a trusted ally for researchers. It simplifies complex processes like data collection, analysis, and visualization, democratizing research and making it more accessible to a broad audience. LimeSurvey, our innovative, user-friendly tool, brings this vision to life. It stands at the crossroads of simplicity and power, embodying the essence of accessible survey research. Whether you're a freelancer exploring new market trends, a psychology student curious about human behavior, or an HR officer aiming to improve company culture, LimeSurvey empowers you to conduct efficient, effective research. Its suite of features and intuitive design matches your research pace, allowing your curiosity to take the front seat. For instance, consider you're a researcher studying consumer behavior across different demographics. With LimeSurvey, you can easily design demographic-specific questions, distribute your survey across various channels, collect responses in real-time, and visualize your data through intuitive dashboards. This synergy of tools and functionalities makes LimeSurvey a perfect ally in your quest for knowledge. Conclusion If you've come this far, we can sense your spark of curiosity. Are you eager to take the reins and conduct your own survey research? Are you ready to embrace the simple yet powerful tool that LimeSurvey offers? If so, we can't wait to see where your journey takes you next! In the world of survey research, there's always more to explore, more to learn and more to discover. So, keep your curiosity alive, stay open to new ideas, and remember, your exploration is just beginning! We hope that our exploration has been as enlightening for you as it was exciting for us. Remember, the journey doesn't end here. With the power of knowledge and the right tools in your hands, there's no limit to what you can achieve. So, let your curiosity be your guide and dive into the fascinating world of survey research with LimeSurvey! Try it out for free now! Happy surveying! {loadmoduleid 429}

Table Content

Survey research.

The world of research is vast and complex, but with the right tools and understanding, it's an open field of discovery. Welcome to a journey into the heart of survey research.

What is survey research?

Survey research is the lens through which we view the opinions, behaviors, and experiences of a population. Think of it as the research world's detective, cleverly sleuthing out the truths hidden beneath layers of human complexity.

Why is survey research important?

Survey research is a Swiss Army Knife in a researcher's toolbox. It’s adaptable, reliable, and incredibly versatile, but its real power? It gives voice to the silent majority. Whether it's understanding customer preferences or assessing the impact of a social policy, survey research is the bridge between unanswered questions and insightful data.

Let's embark on this exploration, armed with the spirit of openness, a sprinkle of curiosity, and the thirst for making knowledge accessible. As we journey further into the realm of survey research, we'll delve deeper into the diverse types of surveys, innovative data collection methods, and the rewards and challenges that come with them.

Types of survey research

Survey research is like an artist's palette, offering a variety of types to suit your unique research needs. Each type paints a different picture, giving us fascinating insights into the world around us.

Cross-Sectional Surveys: Capture a snapshot of a population at a specific moment in time. They're your trusty Polaroid camera, freezing a moment for analysis and understanding.
Longitudinal Surveys: Track changes over time, much like a time-lapse video. They help to identify trends and patterns, offering a dynamic perspective of your subject.
Descriptive Surveys: Draw a detailed picture of the current state of affairs. They're your magnifying glass, examining the prevalence of a phenomenon or attitudes within a group.
Analytical Surveys: Deep dive into the reasons behind certain outcomes. They're the research world's version of Sherlock Holmes, unraveling the complex web of cause and effect.

But, what method should you choose for data collection? The plot thickens, doesn't it? Let's unravel this mystery in our next section.

Survey research and data collection methods

Data collection in survey research is an art form, and there's no one-size-fits-all method. Think of it as your paintbrush, each stroke represents a different way of capturing data.

Online Surveys: In the digital age, online surveys have surged in popularity. They're fast, cost-effective, and can reach a global audience. But like a mysterious online acquaintance, respondents may not always be who they say they are.
Mail Surveys: Like a postcard from a distant friend, mail surveys have a certain charm. They're great for reaching respondents without internet access. However, they’re slower and have lower response rates. They’re a test of patience and persistence.
Telephone Surveys: With the sound of a ringing phone, the human element enters the picture. Great for reaching a diverse audience, they bring a touch of personal connection. But, remember, not all are fans of unsolicited calls.
Face-to-Face Surveys: These are the heart-to-heart conversations of the survey world. While they require more resources, they're the gold standard for in-depth, high-quality data.

As we journey further, let’s weigh the pros and cons of survey research.

Advantages and disadvantages of survey research

Every hero has its strengths and weaknesses, and survey research is no exception. Let's unwrap the gift box of survey research to see what lies inside.

Advantages:

Versatility: Like a superhero with multiple powers, surveys can be adapted to different topics, audiences, and research needs.
Accessibility: With online surveys, geographical boundaries dissolve. We can reach out to the world from our living room.
Anonymity: Like a confessional booth, surveys allow respondents to share their views without fear of judgment.

Disadvantages:

Response Bias: Ever met someone who says what you want to hear? Survey respondents can be like that too.
Limited Depth: Like a puddle after a rainstorm, some surveys only skim the surface of complex issues.
Nonresponse: Sometimes, potential respondents play hard to get, skewing the data.

Survey research may have its challenges, but it also presents opportunities to learn and grow. As we forge ahead on our journey, we dive into the design process of survey research.

Limitations of survey research

Every research method has its limitations, like bumps on the road to discovery. But don't worry, with the right approach, these challenges become opportunities for growth.

Misinterpretation: Sometimes, respondents might misunderstand your questions, like a badly translated novel. To overcome this, keep your questions simple and clear.

Social Desirability Bias: People often want to present themselves in the best light. They might answer questions in a way that portrays them positively, even if it's not entirely accurate. Overcome this by ensuring anonymity and emphasizing honesty.

Sample Representation: If your survey sample isn't representative of the population you're studying, it can skew your results. Aiming for a diverse sample can mitigate this.

Now that we're aware of the limitations let's delve into the world of survey design.

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Survey research design

Designing a survey is like crafting a roadmap to discovery. It's an intricate process that involves careful planning, innovative strategies, and a deep understanding of your research goals. Let's get started.

Approach and Strategy

Your approach and strategy are the compasses guiding your survey research. Clear objectives, defined research questions, and an understanding of your target audience lay the foundation for a successful survey.

The panel is the heartbeat of your survey, the respondents who breathe life into your research. Selecting a representative panel ensures your research is accurate and inclusive.

9 Tips on Building the Perfect Survey Research Questionnaire

Keep It Simple: Clear and straightforward questions lead to accurate responses.
Make It Relevant: Ensure every question ties back to your research objectives.
Order Matters: Start with easy questions to build rapport and save sensitive ones for later.
Avoid Double-Barreled Questions: Stick to one idea per question.
Offer a Balanced Scale: For rating scales, provide an equal number of positive and negative options.
Provide a ‘Don't Know’ Option: This prevents guessing and keeps your data accurate.
Pretest Your Survey: A pilot run helps you spot any issues before the final launch.
Keep It Short: Respect your respondents' time.
Make It Engaging: Keep your respondents interested with a mix of question types.

Survey research examples and questions

Examples serve as a bridge connecting theoretical concepts to real-world scenarios. Let's consider a few practical examples of survey research across various domains.

User Experience (UX)

Imagine being a UX designer at a budding tech start-up. Your app is gaining traction, but to keep your user base growing and engaged, you must ensure that your app's UX is top-notch. In this case, a well-designed survey could be a beacon, guiding you toward understanding user behavior, preferences, and pain points.

Here's an example of how such a survey could look:

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the ease of navigating our app?"
"How often do you encounter difficulties while using our app?"
"What features do you use most frequently in our app?"
"What improvements would you suggest for our app?"
"What features would you like to see in future updates?"

This line of questioning, while straightforward, provides invaluable insights. It enables the UX designer to identify strengths to capitalize on and weaknesses to improve, ultimately leading to a product that resonates with users.

Psychology and Ethics in survey research

The realm of survey research is not just about data and numbers, but it's also about understanding human behavior and treating respondents ethically.

Psychology: In-depth understanding of cognitive biases and social dynamics can profoundly influence survey design. Let's take the 'Recency Effect,' a psychological principle stating that people tend to remember recent events more vividly than those in the past. While framing questions about user experiences, this insight could be invaluable.

For example, a question like "Can you recall an instance in the past week when our customer service exceeded your expectations?" is likely to fetch more accurate responses than asking about an event several months ago.

Ethics: On the other hand, maintaining privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent is more than ethical - it's fundamental to the integrity of the research process.

Imagine conducting a sensitive survey about workplace culture. Ensuring respondents that their responses will remain confidential and anonymous can encourage more honest responses. An introductory note stating these assurances, along with a clear outline of the survey's purpose, can help build trust with your respondents.

Survey research software

In the age of digital information, survey research software has become a trusted ally for researchers. It simplifies complex processes like data collection, analysis, and visualization, democratizing research and making it more accessible to a broad audience.

LimeSurvey, our innovative, user-friendly tool, brings this vision to life. It stands at the crossroads of simplicity and power, embodying the essence of accessible survey research.

Whether you're a freelancer exploring new market trends, a psychology student curious about human behavior, or an HR officer aiming to improve company culture, LimeSurvey empowers you to conduct efficient, effective research. Its suite of features and intuitive design matches your research pace, allowing your curiosity to take the front seat.

For instance, consider you're a researcher studying consumer behavior across different demographics. With LimeSurvey, you can easily design demographic-specific questions, distribute your survey across various channels, collect responses in real-time, and visualize your data through intuitive dashboards. This synergy of tools and functionalities makes LimeSurvey a perfect ally in your quest for knowledge.

If you've come this far, we can sense your spark of curiosity. Are you eager to take the reins and conduct your own survey research? Are you ready to embrace the simple yet powerful tool that LimeSurvey offers? If so, we can't wait to see where your journey takes you next!

In the world of survey research, there's always more to explore, more to learn and more to discover. So, keep your curiosity alive, stay open to new ideas, and remember, your exploration is just beginning!

We hope that our exploration has been as enlightening for you as it was exciting for us. Remember, the journey doesn't end here. With the power of knowledge and the right tools in your hands, there's no limit to what you can achieve. So, let your curiosity be your guide and dive into the fascinating world of survey research with LimeSurvey! Try it out for free now!

Happy surveying!

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Best Survey Examples for your research

Whether you are creating a survey for market research, customer satisfaction evaluation, academic study or for human resource evaluation for your organization, good survey examples can go a long way in ensuring that your survey is up to the standard to collect great responses such that you get the best possible insights for your research.

Here are some critical survey examples by categories for your next research project:

Market Research

Market research is one of the most common reasons to conduct a survey. This also includes product evaluation and product testing where you would live to collect feedback on the potential of a product or service in a given market and demographic segment.

Here are a few survey examples for market research that will help you create a great market research survey:

Concept Evaluation and Pricing survey : This survey is used for evaluating a potential product / service content and its correlation to its pricing. This is a critical market research example because more than half of all market research surveys are for product evaluations in correlation to pricing models.

This brings us to our next example.

Conjoint Analysis survey : Whenever you want to study a product or service and its correlation to pricing or any other attribute – conjoint analysis survey is the best template to move forward. Conjoint analysis is used to undertake studies that want to understand how one aspect or feature may affect purchasing or choice pattern for another feature and the entire product overall.

Advertising Effectiveness survey : Any marketing or advertising campaign has to answer for its effectiveness, ROI and consumer / audience impact. This example template covers the important and standard questions that must be included in your next advertising effectiveness survey such that you can draw insightful conclusions on how well your campaign was able to perform, make your audience aware of your brand and how well could you convince them to purchase your product!

See more examples : Marketing and market research surveys

Customer Satisfaction

As businesses become more customer centric, bench-marking on customer satisfaction using surveys has become a defined metric for customer success. Here are a few examples for your next customer satisfaction evaluation survey:

Net Promoter Score Survey : Any customer experience evaluation must include the most critical and also the most heavily used survey – the Net Promoter Score question. What makes this customer question so important is that it provides you with a numeric metric on the basis of how your customer’s experience was, was it good enough for them to recommend your brand to friends and family or whether they are potential brand detractor. As a business, you need answers to these questions and the NPS survey gets you this insight with just a single question.

Product Satisfaction Survey : This survey example explores customer feedback based on their experience with the product as well as the organization at points of contact of purchase and post-purchase support. For any business or non-profit, wanting to understand customer satisfaction with their product is a critical step towards improving overall customer experience – through product changes as well as service improvements.

This brings us to our next survey example.

Motivation and Buying Experience : While it is great to understand customer experience with your product – you need to dig deeper to the source if you want to make fundamental changes that increases your product purchases. You need to understand “why” people buy your product, how was their buying experience and what you need to do to leverage your existing advantages over competition and what you need to do to improve it further.

See more examples : Customer satisfaction surveys

Human Resources and Employee Evaluation

The buzz of employee engagement has caused most of the mature industries to understand how employee engagement and motivation can affect their productivity and commitment towards product / service improvements and customer success.

Here are a few great survey examples to evaluate if your human resources are motivated and contribute towards creating a winning work culture:

Job Satisfaction Survey : A popular saying goes like this – “If you want satisfied customers, you need satisfied employees”. What it means is that your employees are the resources that keep your customers happy – every employee work division is ultimately geared towards getting more customers and keeping them satisfied. If an employee is unsatisfied with their job, their is a good chance that they won’t be able to provide a dedicated and satisfactory output that satisfies your customers either. Therefore, first begin to understand how your employees feel at work using this survey example.

Supervisor Evaluation Survey : Managers and supervisors form the first layer of employee hierarchy and ar responsible for translating company values and team motivation down to the last employee. This makes it critically important to evaluate if your managers / supervisors are well trained to carry out their daily tasks and if you need to make improvements to your mid-management process.

Senior Management Survey : Employees, managers / supervisors and now the cycle completes with collecting feedback for the senior-most management and leadership teams, including your executive team. After their immediate reporting managers, every employee of an organization looks up to the senior management for references and motivations. Through ideas and actions, the senior management must be well equipped to drive the core values of your organization and trickle down employee motivation and team building skills.

See more examples : HR and Employee Surveys

Academic Evaluation

Colleges, schools and academic institutions are becoming increasingly active in collecting insightful feedback through surveys. More and more educational power houses now want to conduct academic surveys where they want to actively collect feedback from students, parents and professors to improve their quality of education.

Here are some popular survey examples:

Professor Evaluation Survey : Professors are “gurus”. What they know, needs to be passed down to every generation that studies under them with on-hands experience in conducting case studies and research projects together. A University’s collective reputation begins with the quality of education imparted by its professors. This survey example collects feedback on professors for great insights on what can be improved in your current standards and what your professors are doing great.

Student Stress Evaluation Survey : Student stress is a major reason for student drop-outs and even suicides. A University’s reputation depends heavily on how it helps students cope with stress from studies and academic processes. Use this survey example to survey your students for signs of work stress and fatigue. Moreover, this is also the time when students learn how to deal with stress, a stress that comes with making career decisions as well. This is the time you can train your students on stress management, in their student lives as well as ahead in their job and profession.

Graduation / University Completion Survey : Your exiting students are the best source for collecting feedback on your University. Your students who have successfully accomplished their degrees are not just success stories, but also stories of their experience at the university, what they felt helped them complete their studies and also what they found to have hindered progress. This is a great survey example for your next academic survey!

See more examples : Academic Evaluation and Student Surveys

Psychographic and Demographics

Psychology and demographic surveys are important to researchers in most fields because these surveys focus on understanding the psychology and demographic categorization of a respondent.

Here are some great survey examples :

Lifestyle Survey : This survey example explores the general lifestyle of a respondent and collects feedback on some basic demographic questions. This survey forms a good foundation for any psychological profile survey of a demographic segment or consumer base. This can also form the basis for a territorial survey of a particular region’s lifestyle and general choices.

Internet / Web Demographic Survey : In today’s increasing online world where most decisions and actions are made over the internet, it is important to understand not just the lifestyle of a demographic, but also their behaviour and preference while browsing the internet. This survey example will help you formulate the template needed for your next web survey.

LEARN ABOUT: Pricing Research

Business / Profession Survey : Another fundamental survey example for any psychographic / demographic researcher is the business and profession survey. This survey helps you capture details of the respondent’s profession, along with basic demographics.

See more : Psychographic / Demographic Surveys

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Questionnaire Design | Methods, Question Types & Examples

Questionnaire Design | Methods, Question Types & Examples

Published on July 15, 2021 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on June 22, 2023.

A questionnaire is a list of questions or items used to gather data from respondents about their attitudes, experiences, or opinions. Questionnaires can be used to collect quantitative and/or qualitative information.

Questionnaires are commonly used in market research as well as in the social and health sciences. For example, a company may ask for feedback about a recent customer service experience, or psychology researchers may investigate health risk perceptions using questionnaires.

Questionnaires vs. surveys, questionnaire methods, open-ended vs. closed-ended questions, question wording, question order, step-by-step guide to design, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about questionnaire design.

A survey is a research method where you collect and analyze data from a group of people. A questionnaire is a specific tool or instrument for collecting the data.

Designing a questionnaire means creating valid and reliable questions that address your research objectives , placing them in a useful order, and selecting an appropriate method for administration.

But designing a questionnaire is only one component of survey research. Survey research also involves defining the population you’re interested in, choosing an appropriate sampling method , administering questionnaires, data cleansing and analysis, and interpretation.

Sampling is important in survey research because you’ll often aim to generalize your results to the population. Gather data from a sample that represents the range of views in the population for externally valid results. There will always be some differences between the population and the sample, but minimizing these will help you avoid several types of research bias , including sampling bias , ascertainment bias , and undercoverage bias .

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Questionnaires can be self-administered or researcher-administered . Self-administered questionnaires are more common because they are easy to implement and inexpensive, but researcher-administered questionnaires allow deeper insights.

Self-administered questionnaires

Self-administered questionnaires can be delivered online or in paper-and-pen formats, in person or through mail. All questions are standardized so that all respondents receive the same questions with identical wording.

Self-administered questionnaires can be:

cost-effective
easy to administer for small and large groups
anonymous and suitable for sensitive topics

But they may also be:

unsuitable for people with limited literacy or verbal skills
susceptible to a nonresponse bias (most people invited may not complete the questionnaire)
biased towards people who volunteer because impersonal survey requests often go ignored.

Researcher-administered questionnaires

Researcher-administered questionnaires are interviews that take place by phone, in-person, or online between researchers and respondents.

Researcher-administered questionnaires can:

help you ensure the respondents are representative of your target audience
allow clarifications of ambiguous or unclear questions and answers
have high response rates because it’s harder to refuse an interview when personal attention is given to respondents

But researcher-administered questionnaires can be limiting in terms of resources. They are:

costly and time-consuming to perform
more difficult to analyze if you have qualitative responses
likely to contain experimenter bias or demand characteristics
likely to encourage social desirability bias in responses because of a lack of anonymity

Your questionnaire can include open-ended or closed-ended questions or a combination of both.

Using closed-ended questions limits your responses, while open-ended questions enable a broad range of answers. You’ll need to balance these considerations with your available time and resources.

Closed-ended questions

Closed-ended, or restricted-choice, questions offer respondents a fixed set of choices to select from. Closed-ended questions are best for collecting data on categorical or quantitative variables.

Categorical variables can be nominal or ordinal. Quantitative variables can be interval or ratio. Understanding the type of variable and level of measurement means you can perform appropriate statistical analyses for generalizable results.

Examples of closed-ended questions for different variables

Nominal variables include categories that can’t be ranked, such as race or ethnicity. This includes binary or dichotomous categories.

It’s best to include categories that cover all possible answers and are mutually exclusive. There should be no overlap between response items.

In binary or dichotomous questions, you’ll give respondents only two options to choose from.

White Black or African American American Indian or Alaska Native Asian Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

Ordinal variables include categories that can be ranked. Consider how wide or narrow a range you’ll include in your response items, and their relevance to your respondents.

Likert scale questions collect ordinal data using rating scales with 5 or 7 points.

When you have four or more Likert-type questions, you can treat the composite data as quantitative data on an interval scale . Intelligence tests, psychological scales, and personality inventories use multiple Likert-type questions to collect interval data.

With interval or ratio scales , you can apply strong statistical hypothesis tests to address your research aims.

Pros and cons of closed-ended questions

Well-designed closed-ended questions are easy to understand and can be answered quickly. However, you might still miss important answers that are relevant to respondents. An incomplete set of response items may force some respondents to pick the closest alternative to their true answer. These types of questions may also miss out on valuable detail.

To solve these problems, you can make questions partially closed-ended, and include an open-ended option where respondents can fill in their own answer.

Open-ended questions

Open-ended, or long-form, questions allow respondents to give answers in their own words. Because there are no restrictions on their choices, respondents can answer in ways that researchers may not have otherwise considered. For example, respondents may want to answer “multiracial” for the question on race rather than selecting from a restricted list.

How do you feel about open science?
How would you describe your personality?
In your opinion, what is the biggest obstacle for productivity in remote work?

Open-ended questions have a few downsides.

They require more time and effort from respondents, which may deter them from completing the questionnaire.

For researchers, understanding and summarizing responses to these questions can take a lot of time and resources. You’ll need to develop a systematic coding scheme to categorize answers, and you may also need to involve other researchers in data analysis for high reliability .

Question wording can influence your respondents’ answers, especially if the language is unclear, ambiguous, or biased. Good questions need to be understood by all respondents in the same way ( reliable ) and measure exactly what you’re interested in ( valid ).

Use clear language

You should design questions with your target audience in mind. Consider their familiarity with your questionnaire topics and language and tailor your questions to them.

For readability and clarity, avoid jargon or overly complex language. Don’t use double negatives because they can be harder to understand.

Use balanced framing

Respondents often answer in different ways depending on the question framing. Positive frames are interpreted as more neutral than negative frames and may encourage more socially desirable answers.

Positive frame	Negative frame
Should protests of pandemic-related restrictions be allowed?	Should protests of pandemic-related restrictions be forbidden?

Use a mix of both positive and negative frames to avoid research bias , and ensure that your question wording is balanced wherever possible.

Unbalanced questions focus on only one side of an argument. Respondents may be less likely to oppose the question if it is framed in a particular direction. It’s best practice to provide a counter argument within the question as well.

Unbalanced	Balanced
Do you favor…?	Do you favor or oppose…?
Do you agree that…?	Do you agree or disagree that…?

Avoid leading questions

Leading questions guide respondents towards answering in specific ways, even if that’s not how they truly feel, by explicitly or implicitly providing them with extra information.

It’s best to keep your questions short and specific to your topic of interest.

The average daily work commute in the US takes 54.2 minutes and costs $29 per day. Since 2020, working from home has saved many employees time and money. Do you favor flexible work-from-home policies even after it’s safe to return to offices?
Experts agree that a well-balanced diet provides sufficient vitamins and minerals, and multivitamins and supplements are not necessary or effective. Do you agree or disagree that multivitamins are helpful for balanced nutrition?

Keep your questions focused

Ask about only one idea at a time and avoid double-barreled questions. Double-barreled questions ask about more than one item at a time, which can confuse respondents.

This question could be difficult to answer for respondents who feel strongly about the right to clean drinking water but not high-speed internet. They might only answer about the topic they feel passionate about or provide a neutral answer instead – but neither of these options capture their true answers.

Instead, you should ask two separate questions to gauge respondents’ opinions.

Strongly Agree Agree Undecided Disagree Strongly Disagree

Do you agree or disagree that the government should be responsible for providing high-speed internet to everyone?

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You can organize the questions logically, with a clear progression from simple to complex. Alternatively, you can randomize the question order between respondents.

Logical flow

Using a logical flow to your question order means starting with simple questions, such as behavioral or opinion questions, and ending with more complex, sensitive, or controversial questions.

The question order that you use can significantly affect the responses by priming them in specific directions. Question order effects, or context effects, occur when earlier questions influence the responses to later questions, reducing the validity of your questionnaire.

While demographic questions are usually unaffected by order effects, questions about opinions and attitudes are more susceptible to them.

How knowledgeable are you about Joe Biden’s executive orders in his first 100 days?
Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Joe Biden is managing the economy?
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president?

It’s important to minimize order effects because they can be a source of systematic error or bias in your study.

Randomization

Randomization involves presenting individual respondents with the same questionnaire but with different question orders.

When you use randomization, order effects will be minimized in your dataset. But a randomized order may also make it harder for respondents to process your questionnaire. Some questions may need more cognitive effort, while others are easier to answer, so a random order could require more time or mental capacity for respondents to switch between questions.

Step 1: Define your goals and objectives

The first step of designing a questionnaire is determining your aims.

What topics or experiences are you studying?
What specifically do you want to find out?
Is a self-report questionnaire an appropriate tool for investigating this topic?

Once you’ve specified your research aims, you can operationalize your variables of interest into questionnaire items. Operationalizing concepts means turning them from abstract ideas into concrete measurements. Every question needs to address a defined need and have a clear purpose.

Step 2: Use questions that are suitable for your sample

Create appropriate questions by taking the perspective of your respondents. Consider their language proficiency and available time and energy when designing your questionnaire.

Are the respondents familiar with the language and terms used in your questions?
Would any of the questions insult, confuse, or embarrass them?
Do the response items for any closed-ended questions capture all possible answers?
Are the response items mutually exclusive?
Do the respondents have time to respond to open-ended questions?

Consider all possible options for responses to closed-ended questions. From a respondent’s perspective, a lack of response options reflecting their point of view or true answer may make them feel alienated or excluded. In turn, they’ll become disengaged or inattentive to the rest of the questionnaire.

Step 3: Decide on your questionnaire length and question order

Once you have your questions, make sure that the length and order of your questions are appropriate for your sample.

If respondents are not being incentivized or compensated, keep your questionnaire short and easy to answer. Otherwise, your sample may be biased with only highly motivated respondents completing the questionnaire.

Decide on your question order based on your aims and resources. Use a logical flow if your respondents have limited time or if you cannot randomize questions. Randomizing questions helps you avoid bias, but it can take more complex statistical analysis to interpret your data.

Step 4: Pretest your questionnaire

When you have a complete list of questions, you’ll need to pretest it to make sure what you’re asking is always clear and unambiguous. Pretesting helps you catch any errors or points of confusion before performing your study.

Ask friends, classmates, or members of your target audience to complete your questionnaire using the same method you’ll use for your research. Find out if any questions were particularly difficult to answer or if the directions were unclear or inconsistent, and make changes as necessary.

If you have the resources, running a pilot study will help you test the validity and reliability of your questionnaire. A pilot study is a practice run of the full study, and it includes sampling, data collection , and analysis. You can find out whether your procedures are unfeasible or susceptible to bias and make changes in time, but you can’t test a hypothesis with this type of study because it’s usually statistically underpowered .

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Student’s t -distribution
Normal distribution
Null and Alternative Hypotheses
Chi square tests
Confidence interval
Quartiles & Quantiles
Cluster sampling
Stratified sampling
Data cleansing
Reproducibility vs Replicability
Peer review
Prospective cohort study

Research bias

Implicit bias
Cognitive bias
Placebo effect
Hawthorne effect
Hindsight bias
Affect heuristic
Social desirability bias

A questionnaire is a data collection tool or instrument, while a survey is an overarching research method that involves collecting and analyzing data from people using questionnaires.

Closed-ended, or restricted-choice, questions offer respondents a fixed set of choices to select from. These questions are easier to answer quickly.

Open-ended or long-form questions allow respondents to answer in their own words. Because there are no restrictions on their choices, respondents can answer in ways that researchers may not have otherwise considered.

A Likert scale is a rating scale that quantitatively assesses opinions, attitudes, or behaviors. It is made up of 4 or more questions that measure a single attitude or trait when response scores are combined.

To use a Likert scale in a survey , you present participants with Likert-type questions or statements, and a continuum of items, usually with 5 or 7 possible responses, to capture their degree of agreement.

You can organize the questions logically, with a clear progression from simple to complex, or randomly between respondents. A logical flow helps respondents process the questionnaire easier and quicker, but it may lead to bias. Randomization can minimize the bias from order effects.

Questionnaires can be self-administered or researcher-administered.

Researcher-administered questionnaires are interviews that take place by phone, in-person, or online between researchers and respondents. You can gain deeper insights by clarifying questions for respondents or asking follow-up questions.

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Market Research Surveys
What is market research survey

Why use surveys?

Survey research methods.

Conducting market research surveys
Common mistakes with market research surveys?

The different types of survey methods

Survey tools for your survey method, what can businesses do with these types of surveys, how to write a research survey (free example templates), try qualtrics for free, types of market research surveys.

20 min read There are different types of survey research you can run, but the majority of research is conducted with just a handful of research survey methods. We explore what they are and how to use them.

What is a market research survey?

A market research survey is a way of getting feedback directly from the people who have the ultimate say in your organization’s success: your customers.

Unlike focus groups or interviews, market research surveys allow you to get detailed feedback at scale — from behaviors to overall experiences — and in a standardized format. Also, as the data is easy to process, you can quickly turn it into actionable insights .

Surveys are used to collect primary research, which means market research data that you collect yourself. The other type is secondary data, which is obtained from other sources, for example census data.

Surveys are among the most popular methods of primary market research, since they can be used to gather qualitative and quantitative research on market trends, and they can cover a huge range of respondents across your customer base. They’re also a format familiar to many people.

Get started with our free survey software

Surveys are ultimately about understanding your target audience, but they can go beyond your customer base. They can be taken by anyone — employees, potential future customers, and even those who don’t want to engage with your business (helping you to identify the ones that do).

However, a survey isn’t a stand-alone solution. It can work alongside other survey methods, such as focus groups, field studies, observation, and market analysis, to help you get a clear picture of your market and decide what direction to take.

But with all these different types of survey methods, and some being better than others in specific areas (e.g. data quality, collecting feedback), where should you start?

To get the best out of each survey research type, consider what you can invest in terms of:

Time: How quickly do you need the survey research? Do you have time to conduct research?
Money: Do you have the budget to invest in research overheads?
Knowledge of analytics: Are you trained to interpret the collected data? If not, do you have a partner you can work with to get the insights you need?
Research expertise: Do you have clearly defined problems or challenges that you want to explore or understand through surveys?
Technology capability: Is your survey software up to the task of analyzing the data?
Your audience’s response: Is it likely that your audience will respond? What survey types (online surveys, etc.) would they be most receptive to?
Slow responses: Do you have a strategy in place to avoid low response rates?

Conducting market research surveys: best practices

Today’s market research industry is advancing rapidly, thanks in part to new technologies which make it easier to conduct market research, and offer more power and sophistication when it comes to analyzing your data.

Data-driven research is the standard across market research and other disciplines, and within the sector competition between brands is driving progress towards better and better market research tools. Beyond customer satisfaction, demographic questions and competitive analysis, today’s tools can dive deeper into your data, unearthing key drivers behind trends and even providing aggregated data on emotions and attitudes in customer feedback.

However, none of these technological advances can replace humans. To conduct market research successfully, you need to be able to combine tech with insight, intelligence and intuition, especially when you’re dealing directly with target customers, for example during a phone interview or when you’re approaching existing customers whose relationship to your brand needs to be maintained.

As we’ll see in this guide, market research can be used in a huge range of contexts, including brand tracking, customer experience research, employee experience programs, and of course product development. Whichever application you’re looking at, it’s essential to prepare thoroughly before sending out your surveys.

Make sure your research question has been formulated and agreed by everyone involved in the project
Develop a communications plan to maximize the chances of people engaging with your survey, including introductions, publicity, reminders and follow-up
Consider using pre-testing before you fully launch your survey to thoroughly road-test it and iron out any issues
Close the loop – after the study is complete and actions have been taken, let participations know how their contribution helped
Consider a research panel for future surveys, either one you’ve built yourself or one managed by a third party provider

What are some common mistakes with market research surveys?

With the right survey tools and appropriate support from your survey platform provider, everything should go smoothly, even if you’re not an expert at doing your own market research. However, there are a few things to watch out for.

Choosing the wrong people to survey

Figuring out who you’re going to survey in the first place may seem like an obvious first step and not one you need to spend much time on. But in fact it’s possible to get it wrong, survey the wrong people and end up running a market research study with unreliable data. This is sometimes called ‘sample framing error’

Getting your sample size wrong

If your sample is too small, you run the risk of getting a sample group that doesn’t adequately reflect your target population. This can throw your entire market research survey off course. But if the sample is too large, you spend time and money on research that doesn’t add significant value. Have a look at our sample size calculator to help determine the right sample size for your market research surveys.

Using the wrong kinds of analysis

Do you know your conjoint analysis from your T-test? Understanding the basic types of statistical tests you can use to analyze market research survey data is essential if you’re not using a survey tool with built-in analytics. You’ll need to match the kind of data you’re collecting to the analysis method you choose in order to get accurate insights from your market research surveys.

Writing confusing survey questions

Survey questions aren’t like the questions we use in everyday speech, or even like the ones we ask in formal writing. They need to be highly specific, include appropriate context, and be free of any kind of descriptive or persuasive element that might introduce bias. For a primer on writing great market research survey questions, see our guide to great survey questions

You should choose your survey method based on your target audience, distribution capabilities, and the questions you want answered. For example, interviews are far more personal and explorative by nature, but they’re difficult and costly to scale. Online surveys, on the other hand, have far greater reach and much more affordable — but you lose the opportunity to connect with respondents. Let’s go through the different types and how you can use them.

Online surveys

Online surveys are accessible to any participant across the globe, providing they have an internet connection. You can create online surveys using survey platforms and distribute them via email using a link, or respondents can go directly to the online survey and complete it.

Paper surveys

Paper surveys (or written surveys) are printed surveys filled in by hand. This method works well if respondents have enough time (and incentive) to complete the survey, and the researcher is happy to manually collect the data before collating and interpreting the answers.

Mail surveys

Mail surveys provide exceptional geographical coverage as they can be printed off and sent via the post. However, as recipients need to return the surveys for counting, it’s recommended that you include a pre-paid returns envelope in the original envelope, otherwise you’ll have lower response rates.

Telephone surveys

Telephone surveys involve asking respondents a series of questions over the phone. It’s a popular survey method as it’s convenient for researchers and doesn’t require a lot of capital to do. However, researchers may need to invest time to set up interviews with participants and take notes during the process.

In-person interviews / face-to-face surveys

In-person interviews and face-to-face surveys are great opportunities to get more insightful and valuable responses from participants. You can quickly find out why they think and feel the way that they do, providing an unbiased view of a subject or issue. However, like telephone surveys, they require a lot of time to set up and gather data.

Panel surveys

Panel surveys use a pre-selected group of people as the sample, so that the research can be carried out quickly. It presents a happy medium between the speed and quality of research data.

Based on the type of survey method you choose, here are the types of tools you need and can use for each:

A good internet connection is required for participants to access online surveys, though mobile devices data plans mean that most people can connect to the internet easily.

A good survey software platform is needed to give you full functionality and flexibility, so your online surveys can be customized and optimized. However, businesses can get more for their money with a survey software system that does more for the company.

For example, the Qualtrics XM Platform™ is a best-of-breed experience operating system for experience management. It brings all your operational and experience data together from across the organization to help create and improve experiences for employees, customers, prospects and more. It automatically updates records, has an in-built analytics engine and can handle research projects, from start to finish, in a few clicks.

All you need are paper, ink, pens and clipboards — but due to environmental and sustainability concerns, particularly paper waste and ink pollution, you may want to opt for a more digitized solution.

For mail surveys, the resources and concerns are the same as with paper surveys — but the main difference is distribution.

Ultimately, you need a reliable postal service that can deliver to your target audience. It also becomes costly if you want to include international respondents.

As long as you have good connectivity and network coverage, telephone surveys are straightforward. That said, survey calls can last a long time, so if you plan to include international audiences, ensure you can afford the calling costs.

The only requirement for in-person interviews and face-to-face surveys is a venue to hold them in.

These require participants to be available at the time of the research. Traditionally, third-party generated research panels are available as a service to companies that don’t have access to the audiences they need.

The surveys we explored can be used for four purposes in any business:

1. Market surveys

These help you understand who’s out there, what they want, and how you can best meet their needs.

Market description surveys

Purpose: to determine the size and relative market share of the market. Such studies provide key information about market growth, competitive positioning, and tracking share of the market .

Market profiling / segmentation surveys

Purpose: to identify who the customers are , who they are not, and why they are or are not your customers. This is often a descriptive market segmentation and market share analysis.

Stage in the purchase process / tracking surveys

Where is the customer in the adoption process? This information shows Market Awareness – Knowledge – Intention – Trial – Purchase – Repurchase of the product.

2. Customer experience surveys

This kind of survey helps you put yourself in the customer’s shoes and look at your business from their perspective.

Customer intention – purchase analysis surveys

Purpose: Directed at understanding the current customer. What motivates the customer to move from interest in the product to actual purchase? This is key to understanding customer conversion, commitment, and loyalty .

Customer attitudes and expectations surveys

Purpose: Used to direct advertising and improve customer conversion, commitment, and loyalty. Does the product meet customer expectations ? What attitudes have customers formed about the product and/or company?

Learn how you can set up and run customer attitudes and use surveys

Sales lead generation surveys

Purpose: Sales lead generation surveys are for

assuring timely use and follow-up of sales leads
qualifying sales leads (thereby saving valuable sales force time)
providing more effective tracking of sales leads

Customer trust / loyalty / retention analysis surveys

Purpose: Especially helpful for high-priced consumer goods with a long decision and purchase processes (time from need recognition to purchase), this type of study explores the depth of consumer attitudes formed about the product and/or company.

Salesforce effectiveness surveys

Purpose: A combination of measures that focus on the sales activities, performance, and effectiveness in producing the desired and measurable effect or goal. Often measured as a 360-degree survey completed by the salesperson, the client (evaluating the sales call), and the supervisor responsible for evaluating the salesperson.

Customer service surveys

Purpose: Akin to customer satisfaction surveys, customer service surveys instead focus in detail on the actual customer service that was received, the process involved in receiving that service, and the evaluation of the participants in the service process.

Customer service representative (CSR) surveys

Purpose: CSRs often exhibit frustration, burnout, and high turnover . Surveys focus on CSR retention, reducing costs, and increasing the quality of customer relationships.

Attitudes, burnout, turnover, and retention: CSRs hold attitudes that reflect on their job-related activities including:

the allocation of time
solutions to customer needs
how to improve their job
best practices
how well internal departments help customers

3. Product surveys

As part of product development, surveys help you find out what features, benefits and attributes appeal most to your customers, and how best to package your product, experience or service.

New product, service or experience concept analysis surveys

Purpose: Concept test studies are appropriate in the initial screening of new product concepts . Likes and dislikes about the concept and evaluation of acceptability and likelihood of purchase are especially useful measures.

Concept optimization, demand estimation, and cost analysis surveys (conjoint analysis)

Purpose: Determines an optimal bundle of features and benefits, and estimates associated demand. This kind of survey develops market share estimates of market potential for the alternative potential products.

Habits and practices, or attitude and usage surveys

Purpose: Directed at understanding usage situations, including how, when, and where the product is used. Habits and practices studies sometimes include a real or virtual pantry audit. Attitude and usage studies are used to understand consumer attitudes towards the product category and to life in general. They also look at product and brand usage, including how, when and where the product is used.

Product satisfaction surveys (attribute, features, promised benefits)

Purpose: Evaluation of the product’s promised bundle of benefits (both tangible and image). Are expectations created for the product by advertising, packaging , and the product appearance fulfilled by the product?

Competitive benchmarking surveys

Purpose: A “best practices” study of “how does the market view us relative to the competition?” Competitive positioning analyses often compare the attributes and benefits that make up the product using multidimensional scaling. These analyses also include an evaluation of key competitors, looking at the same KPIs and attributes as product satisfaction surveys.

Sales forecasting and market tracking surveys

Purpose: Sales forecasting and market tracking studies can include expert opinion (experts estimate the market), judgmental bootstrapping (expert-based rules describing how to use available secondary market information), conjoint analysis (estimation of consumer intentions based on product attributes that are important in the decision), and intentions evaluations (consumer self-reported intentions of future purchases).

Price setting surveys and elasticity of demand analysis

Purpose: Price surveys estimate the elasticity of demand and show optimal price points, including prices too low or too high. Price surveys may estimate the demand for different product or service segments, or different usage situations.

4. Brand surveys

A survey can help you understand how consumers perceive your brand and what values and ideas they associate with it. You can explore what value your brand has and whether people would choose you over competitors in your market niche.

Brand equity analysis surveys

Purpose: What is the psychological value that a brand holds in the marketplace? Brand equity is a composite of brand awareness , brand quality, brand associations, and brand loyalty measures.

Advertising value identification and analysis surveys

Purpose: Advertising value analysis focuses on mapping the hierarchical attributes, benefits, and values that are associated with and portrayed by an advertisement. Means-end analysis is often part of this type of study.

Advertising message effectiveness surveys (media and message)

Purpose: Message effectiveness testing identifies the impressions, feelings, and effectiveness in moving the respondent to a desired goal (increased awareness, more product information, trial, repeat purchase).

Once you know the right type of survey to run, the next step is to write a survey that your respondents will love to take!

Survey methods can be used to help collect data on real business issues and help you answer questions. Qualtrics supports customer surveys on every channel, at every journey stage to get you answers for more informed decisions.

We’ve put together a range of survey example templates that you can use for free to help you get started:

Employee satisfaction survey template
Employee exit survey template
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey template
Ad testing survey template
Brand awareness survey template
Product pricing survey template
Product research survey template
Employee engagement survey template
Customer service survey template
NPS survey template
Product package testing survey template
Product features prioritization survey template

In addition, for large-scale research studies, Qualtrics offers market research services to help with everything from questionnaire design and survey methods, to implementation and analysis.

Related resources

Post event survey questions 10 min read, best survey software 16 min read, close-ended questions 7 min read, survey vs questionnaire 12 min read, response bias 13 min read, double barreled question 11 min read, likert scales 14 min read, request demo.

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Globally, Biden Receives Higher Ratings Than Trump

Still, most disapprove of how biden has dealt with the israel-hamas war, table of contents.

Views of the U.S.
Confidence in Biden, Trump and other world leaders
Differences by ideology, age and gender
1. Views of the U.S.
2. Confidence in Joe Biden
3. Confidence in Donald Trump
4. Comparing confidence in Macron, Putin and Xi to ratings of Biden and Trump
Biden’s handling of global economic problems
Biden’s handling of climate change
Biden’s handling of China
Biden’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war
Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war
6. Is U.S. democracy a good example to follow?
Appendix A: Favorability of the United States since 2000
Appendix B: Confidence in the U.S. president since 2001
Acknowledgments
About Pew Research Center’s Spring 2024 Global Attitudes Survey

This Pew Research Center analysis focuses on public opinion of the United States, President Joe Biden and other world leaders. It also explores what people think about Biden’s handling of international issues and their perceptions of American democracy. The study includes publics in 34 countries across the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America and sub-Saharan Africa.

This analysis draws on nationally representative surveys of 40,566 adults conducted from Jan. 5 to May 21, 2024. All surveys were conducted over the phone with adults in Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Surveys were conducted face to face in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Hungary, India, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia and Turkey. In Australia, we used a mixed-mode probability-based online panel.

A map showing Countries included in this report

Throughout the report, we analyze respondents’ attitudes based on where they place themselves on an ideological scale. We asked about political ideology using several slightly different scales and categorized people as being on the ideological left, center or right.

In most countries, we asked people to place themselves on a scale ranging from “Extreme left” to “Extreme right.” The question was asked this way in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
In Australia, the scale ranged from “Left” to “Right”.
In Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand, ideology was measured on a scale from “Extremely progressive” to “Extremely conservative.”
Ideology was not asked about in Ghana, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka or Tunisia.

Prior to 2024, combined totals were based on rounded topline figures. For all reports beginning in 2024, totals are based on unrounded topline figures, so combined totals might be different than in previous years. Refer to the 2024 topline to see our new rounding procedures applied to past years’ data.

Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses, and the survey methodology .

A dot plot showing that In most countries polled, more have confidence in Biden than Trump

With many around the world closely following the fiercely contested rematch between U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that, internationally, Biden is viewed more positively than his rival.

Across the 34 nations polled, a median of 43% have confidence in Biden to do the right thing regarding world affairs, while just 28% have confidence in Trump. The gap between ratings is quite wide in many countries, especially in Europe. Biden’s confidence rating is at least 40 percentage points higher than Trump’s in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden.

However, there are exceptions. There is no statistically significant difference in ratings of Biden and Trump in eight nations we surveyed. And people in Hungary and Tunisia give Trump more positive reviews than Biden, although neither leader gets especially high marks there. (The survey was conducted before Trump’s conviction in a state criminal trial in New York.)

Even though Biden gets better assessments than Trump globally, ratings for the current U.S. president are down since last year in 14 of 21 countries where trends are available, including by double digits in Australia, Israel, Japan, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

A bar chart showing Views of Biden’s international policies

The survey included a series of questions about how Biden is handling major international issues. Overall, opinions are divided on how he is dealing with climate change and global economic problems.

Across the 34 countries polled, a median of around four-in-ten approve of how Biden is dealing with China and with the war between Russia and Ukraine (39% each).

The president gets his most negative reviews on his handling of the Israel-Hamas war: A median of just 31% approve of the way he is handling the conflict, while 57% disapprove. (The survey was conducted prior to Biden announcing a proposal to end the conflict .)

Research in the West Bank and Gaza

Pew Research Center has polled the Palestinian territories in previous years, but we were unable to conduct fieldwork in Gaza or the West Bank for our Spring 2024 survey due to security concerns. We are actively investigating possibilities for both qualitative and quantitative research on public opinion in the region and hope to be able to share data from the region in the coming months.

Six-in-ten Israelis disapprove of how Biden is handling the war, including 53% of Jewish Israelis and 86% of Arab Israelis. (For more on how Israelis rate Biden, read “Israeli Views of the Israel-Hamas War.” )

Of the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed, large majorities in Malaysia, Tunisia and Turkey also disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Opinion is divided on this issue in Bangladesh.

The new survey finds that overall attitudes toward the United States are generally positive: A median of 54% across the nations polled have a favorable view of the U.S., while 31% have a negative opinion.

However, criticisms of American democracy are common in many nations. We asked respondents whether U.S. democracy is a good example for other countries to follow, used to be a good example but has not been in recent years, or has never been a good example.

A bar chart showing that A median of 4 in 10 across 34 countries say the U.S. used to be a good example of democracy

The predominant view in most countries is that the U.S. used to be a good model but has not been recently. Overall, a median of 21% believe it is currently a good example, while 22% say it has never been a good model for other countries.

In eight of the 13 countries where trends are available, fewer people say American democracy is a good example than said so in spring 2021, when we last asked this question.

For this report, we surveyed 40,566 people in 34 countries – not including the U.S. – from Jan. 5 to May 21, 2024. In addition to this overview, the report includes chapters on:

Attitudes toward the United States
Ratings of Biden
Ratings of Trump
Views of Biden and Trump compared with other world leaders
Views about Biden’s handling of major foreign policy issues
Is the U.S. a good example of democracy?

Read some of the report’s key findings below.

A bar chart showing that International views of the U.S. are largely favorable

At least half of those in most countries surveyed express a favorable opinion of the U.S. Poles are the most positive, at 86% favorable. Of the European nations surveyed, ratings also lean positive in Italy, Hungary and the UK. Elsewhere in Europe, however, opinions tend to be closely divided.

Attitudes toward the U.S. are largely favorable in the Asia-Pacific nations polled, especially Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. However, most Australians and Malaysians give the U.S. poor marks.

In the Middle East-North Africa region, a 77% majority of Israelis view the U.S. favorably, although this is down from 87% last year. Large majorities in Tunisia and Turkey offer an unfavorable opinion.

The U.S. gets mostly positive ratings in the sub-Saharan African and Latin American nations surveyed. Two-thirds or more see the U.S. favorably in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Peru.

Refer to Appendix A for long-term trends on views of the U.S.

Pew Research Center has explored attitudes toward American presidents for over two decades, finding significant shifts in opinions over the years. Data from four Western European nations that we have surveyed consistently – France, Germany, Spain and the UK – shows long-term trends in views of recent presidents.

George W. Bush received low and declining ratings during his time in the White House, while Barack Obama got mostly high marks. Attitudes toward Donald Trump were overwhelmingly negative throughout his presidency. Biden has consistently received more positive reviews than his predecessor, but his ratings have declined in these four countries during his time in office.

A line chart showing Confidence in U.S. presidents across Western Europe

There are nine nations in this year’s survey where six-in-ten adults or more express confidence in Biden. Four are in Europe (Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden), two are in the Asia-Pacific region (the Philippines and Thailand) and three are in sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria).

Since last year, confidence in Biden has dropped significantly in 14 nations: Seven in Europe, plus Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea. Biden gets his lowest ratings in Turkey and Tunisia, where only about one-in-ten express confidence in him.

The two countries where at least six-in-ten adults have confidence in Trump are Nigeria and the Philippines. Like Biden, Trump gets one of his lowest ratings in Turkey, where just 10% view him favorably.

Confidence in Trump has increased slightly in a few European countries since we last asked about him in 2020, although his ratings remain quite low in Europe.

In contrast, Trump’s ratings have become more negative in Poland since 2019, which was the last year we asked about him there. Israeli views toward the former president have also become more negative over the past five years.

Refer to Appendix B for long-term trends in confidence in U.S. presidents.

A bar chart showing Confidence in Macron, Biden, Trump, Xi and Putin

In addition to exploring confidence in Biden and Trump, the survey asked about trust in French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Overall, Macron receives the most positive ratings across the countries in the study, followed closely by Biden. The French president gets higher ratings than his U.S. counterpart in many of the European nations surveyed. Both Xi and Putin receive mostly poor marks across the countries in the study.

A dot plot showing that Approval of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war is lower among those on the ideological left

In 17 of the 28 countries where political ideology is measured, people on the right are more likely to have a positive opinion of the U.S. than those on the left. For example, 65% of people on the right in Spain view the U.S. favorably, compared with 26% of people on the left.
In 18 countries, people on the right are more likely to express confidence in Trump than those on the left. The gap is especially large in Israel, where 75% of those on the right have confidence in him, compared with just 23% of Israelis on the left.
There are also some sizable ideological differences on views about Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. In several countries – including about half of the European countries surveyed – people on the right are more likely than those on the left to approve of how Biden is handling the conflict.

A table showing that In many countries, men are more confident in Trump than women are

In several countries – including Canada, all Latin American countries surveyed and several countries in the Asia-Pacific region – adults under 35 are more likely to have a positive opinion of the U.S. when compared with adults ages 50 and older. Australia, Israel and Sweden are the only countries where younger adults have a less favorable view of the U.S.
In Canada, Australia and seven of the 10 European countries surveyed, young adults are less likely than older adults to approve of how Biden is dealing with the Israel-Hamas war .
Men have more confidence in Trump than women do in many of the countries surveyed. The largest difference is in the UK, where men are about twice as likely as women to trust the former U.S. president. In many of the countries surveyed, women are less likely than men to answer this question at all.

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LGBTQI+ People and Substance Use

Partner showing compassion towards their partner with a kiss on the forehead.

Research has found that sexual and gender minorities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people (LGBTQI+), have higher rates of substance misuse and substance use disorders than people who identify as heterosexual. People from these groups are also more likely to enter treatment with more severe disorders.
People in LGBTQI+ communities can face stressful situations and environments like stigma and discrimination , harassment, and traumatic experiences . Coping with these issues may raise the likelihood of a person having substance use problems.
NIDA supports research to help identify the particular challenges that sexual and gender minority people face, to prevent or reduce substance use disorders among these groups, and to promote treatment access and better health outcomes.

Latest from NIDA

A Plan to Address Racism in Addiction Science

Find more resources on lgbtqi+ health.

Hear the latest approaches in treatment and care from experts in the fields of HIV and SUD in this NIDA video series, “ At the Intersection .”
See the Stigma and Discrimination Research Toolkit from the National Institute of Mental Health.

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⚡ Good research paper topics. 500 Good Research Paper Topics. 2022-10-14
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COMMENTS

Explore 151 Amazing Topics For Survey Research (Updated 2024)
Top 10 Topics For Survey Research On Entertainment Preferences. Streaming Services vs. Traditional Cable: Consumer Preferences. Influences on Music Genre Preferences Among Different Age Groups. Viewer Satisfaction and Preferences in Online Video Content. Impact of Social Media on Movie and TV Show Recommendations.
10 Survey Topics and Ideas to Help Learn More About Your Customers
*To use this survey template, just create an account (or login), and then select the template from our builder.. 2. Market Research Survey. Most successful businesses base their decisions on thorough market research. Using a market research survey is an excellent way for companies to better understand their prospects and their individual needs, attitudes, preferences, and purchase behavior.
Survey Research
Survey research means collecting information about a group of people by asking them questions and analyzing the results. To conduct an effective survey, follow these six steps: Determine who will participate in the survey. Decide the type of survey (mail, online, or in-person) Design the survey questions and layout.
Survey Ideas for 2024: Top 30 Question Examples + Types of Surveys
Academic Research Surveys- Majorly used by grad students to support and validate their research with fresh, real-world data. ... For collecting feedback on a research topic, one-to-one interviews are way better than telephonic surveys. Sure, they also are time-consuming. But the survey taker will get the complete attention of the respondents ...
Survey Research: Definition, Examples & Methods
Survey research is the process of collecting data from a predefined group (e.g. customers or potential customers) with the ultimate goal of uncovering insights about your products, services, or brand overall.. As a quantitative data collection method, survey research can provide you with a goldmine of information that can inform crucial business and product decisions.
Survey Research: Definition, Examples and Methods
Survey Research Definition. Survey Research is defined as the process of conducting research using surveys that researchers send to survey respondents. The data collected from surveys is then statistically analyzed to draw meaningful research conclusions. In the 21st century, every organization's eager to understand what their customers think ...
90 Survey Question Examples + Best Practices Checklist
However, all questions must serve a purpose. In this section, we divide survey questions into nine categories and include the best survey question examples for each type: 1. Open Ended Questions. Open-ended questions allow respondents to answer in their own words instead of selecting from pre-selected answers.
Survey Questions: 70+ Survey Question Examples & Survey Types
Impactful surveys start here: The main types of survey questions: most survey questions are classified as open-ended, closed-ended, nominal, Likert scale, rating scale, and yes/no. The best surveys often use a combination of questions. 💡 70+ good survey question examples: our top 70+ survey questions, categorized across ecommerce, SaaS, and ...
Survey Questions: Tips & Examples in 2022
Likert scales are commonly used in market research when dealing with single topic survyes. They're simple and most reliable when combatting survey bias. For each question or statement, subjects choose from a range of possible responses. ... Great questions and great answer choices lead to great research success. To learn more about survey ...
Doing Survey Research
Survey research means collecting information about a group of people by asking them questions and analysing the results. To conduct an effective survey, follow these six steps: Determine who will participate in the survey. Decide the type of survey (mail, online, or in-person) Design the survey questions and layout. Distribute the survey.
Sample survey questions and examples
SurveyMonkey. Get data-driven insights from a global leader in online surveys. Integrations. Integrate with 100+ apps and plug-ins to get more done. SurveyMonkey Forms. Build and customize online forms to collect info and payments. SurveyMonkey Genius. Create better surveys and spot insights quickly with built-in AI.
Survey Research: Types, Examples & Methods
Data: The data gathered from survey research is mostly quantitative; although it can be qualitative. Impartial Sampling: The data sample in survey research is random and not subject to unavoidable biases. Ecological Validity: Survey research often makes use of data samples obtained from real-world occurrences.
11 Survey Topics and Ideas to Grow your Business Fast
Are short, bite-sized content pieces ideal or do you prefer longer pieces. There are no hard and fast rules for this survey and you can ask about all aspects of your content strategy. 7. Customer exit survey. No matter how good your product is, you'll lose customers over time.
How to Create an Effective Survey (Updated 2022)
Topics market research survey survey questions. Sarah Fisher . Sarah Fisher is a writer and content strategist based in the UK. She writes for Qualtrics on topics like technology, marketing, research and analytics, people management, product development and branding. She enjoys working with subject matter experts and finding new angles and ...
16 Types of Survey Questions, with 100 Examples
The questions you choose and the way you use them in your survey will affect its results. These are the types of survey questions we will cover: Open-Ended Questions. Closed-Ended Questions. Multiple Choice Questions. Dichotomous Questions. Rating Scale Questions. Likert Scale Questions. Nominal Questions.
Survey Research
Survey research The world of research is vast and complex, but with the right tools and understanding, it's an open field of discovery. ... Like a superhero with multiple powers, surveys can be adapted to different topics, audiences, and research needs. Accessibility: With online surveys, geographical boundaries dissolve. We can reach out to ...
Writing Survey Questions
Pew Research Center surveys generally ask open-ended questions about national problems, opinions about leaders and similar topics near the beginning of the questionnaire. If closed-ended questions that relate to the topic are placed before the open-ended question, respondents are much more likely to mention concepts or considerations raised in ...
Survey Research: Definition, Types & Methods
Descriptive research is the most common and conclusive form of survey research due to its quantitative nature. Unlike exploratory research methods, descriptive research utilizes pre-planned, structured surveys with closed-ended questions. It's also deductive, meaning that the survey structure and questions are determined beforehand based on existing theories or areas of inquiry.
Best Survey Examples for your research
Here are a few survey examples for market research that will help you create a great market research survey: Concept Evaluation and Pricing survey : This survey is used for evaluating a potential product / service content and its correlation to its pricing. This is a critical market research example because more than half of all market research ...
150+ Free Questionnaire Examples & Sample Survey Templates
Filter by survey type. All our sample survey template questions are expert-certified by professional survey methodologists to make sure you ask questions the right way-and get reliable results. You can send out our templates as is, choose separate variables, add additional questions, or customize our questionnaire templates to fit your needs.
Survey Basics
How to access Pew Research Center survey data. Pew Research Center makes most of its datasets available for download once reporting has been completed for a given study. Here's how to find and access our data. short readsOct 5, 2021. Want to better understand how surveys work?
Questionnaire Design
Questionnaires vs. surveys. A survey is a research method where you collect and analyze data from a group of people. A questionnaire is a specific tool or instrument for collecting the data.. Designing a questionnaire means creating valid and reliable questions that address your research objectives, placing them in a useful order, and selecting an appropriate method for administration.
Types of market research surveys
This information shows Market Awareness - Knowledge - Intention - Trial - Purchase - Repurchase of the product. 2. Customer experience surveys. This kind of survey helps you put yourself in the customer's shoes and look at your business from their perspective.
Globally, Biden Gets Higher Ratings Than Trump
Pew Research Center has polled the Palestinian territories in previous years, but we were unable to conduct fieldwork in Gaza or the West Bank for our Spring 2024 survey due to security concerns. We are actively investigating possibilities for both qualitative and quantitative research on public opinion in the region and hope to be able to ...
LGBTQI+ People and Substance Use
IN AN EMERGENCY: Are you or someone you know experiencing severe symptoms or in immediate danger? Please seek immediate medical attention by calling 9-1-1 or visiting an Emergency Department.Poison control can be reached at 1-800-222-1222 or www.poison.org.; Are you or someone you know experiencing a substance use and/or mental health crisis or any other kind of emotional distress?

Explore 151 Amazing Topics For Survey Research (Updated 2024)

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