Popular Survey Question Formats and Question Examples

Customers are the key to improving and growing your business, but you can't understand them unless you learn more about them. Asking the proper survey questions at the right moment in their journey is one method to accomplish this. 

This article will provide you with an overview of some of the most typical survey question formats used in market research. 

What are good survey questions? 

A good survey question provides clear insights and business-critical information about your clients, such as: 

• Who is your intended audience? 
• How should you price your goods? 
• What is it that prevents customers from purchasing from you? 
• Why do people abandon your website? 

What are the benefits of selecting the right survey question format? 

A smart survey question is one that is asked precisely at the proper point in the buyer's journey to provide you with accurate information about your customers' wants and motivations. The survey medium you choose—in-person, email, on-page, etc.—is crucial, but if the questions themselves are badly written, you could waste hours trying to fix little issues while missing larger issues that could have been uncovered with a different type of question. 

To elaborate further, let us look at the six different types of survey questions formats. 

1. Open-ended questions: Instead of being limited to a set of pre-selected options (such as multiple-choice answers, yes/no replies, 0-10 ratings, etc.), open-ended questions allow respondents to frame their own response. 

      Open-ended question examples: 

• What other services or products would you want to see us provide? 

• What would you change about our product if you could only alter one thing? 

2. Closed-ended questions: Closed-end questions limit a user's response options to a pre-determined set of options. These are some of the question types that fall into this broad category:

• Nominal questions 
• Questions with a Likert scale 
• Questions with a rating scale 

• Questions with a 'yes' or a 'no' answer 

 Closed-ended questions are ideal in two situations: survey openings, or when you need to create graphs and trends based on people's responses. 

3. Nominal questions: A nominal question is a form of survey question in which respondents are given many answer options that are non-numerical and do not overlap (unless you include an 'all of the above' option).

Nominal question example: 

What is your motive for using [product name]? 

1. Professional use 
2. Professional use 
3. It can be used for both commercial and personal purposes.
4. Questions with a Likert scale: A respondent's level of agreement with a statement or the intensity of their reaction to something is measured using a Likert scale, which is commonly a 5- or 7-point scale.

The scale grows in a symmetrical manner, with the median number (e.g., a '3' on a 5-point scale) indicating a point of neutrality, the lowest number (always a '1) indicating an extreme viewpoint, and the highest number (e.g., a '5' on a 5-point scale) indicating the opposite extreme viewpoint. 

Likert scale question examples include the following: 

A) How strongly do you agree with the following statement: The payment process at [business] is simple and painless. 

1 - Strongly disagree 

2 - Somewhat disagree 

3 - Neither agree nor disagree 

4 - Somewhat agree 

5 - Strongly agree 

B) How satisfied were you with the customer service you received? 

1 - Very dissatisfied 

2 - Somewhat dissatisfied 

3 - Slightly dissatisfied 

4 - Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 

5 - Slightly satisfied 

6 - Somewhat satisfied 

7 - Very satisfied 

5. Questions using a rating scale (or ordinal): Questions on a rating scale have responses that correspond to a numerical scale (such as rating customer support on a scale of 1-5, or likelihood to recommend a product from 0 to 10).

Examples of rating questions: 

• On a scale of 0-10, how likely would you recommend us to a friend or colleague? 
• On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rank our service? 

6. Questions with a 'yes' or a 'no' answer: These questions are extremely straightforward, requiring only a simple "yes" or "no" response.

 Yes/No question examples: 

• Was this information helpful? (Yes/No) 
• Were you able to locate what you were looking for today? (Yes/No) 

We've compiled a selection of great sample survey questions categorized by e-commerce and software/Software as a Service (SaaS) that you may include in your questionnaire. 

Here are a few effective questions to ask customers, particularly suitable for ecommerce businesses: 

 Prior to making a purchase: 

• What information is missing or would help you make a better buying decision? 
• What is your biggest apprehension or worry about buying this item? 
• Were you able to accomplish your goal for today's visit? 
• What prevented you from making a purchase today? 

 After purchase: 

• Was there anything we could change about the checkout process? 
• What was your main concern or apprehension about buying from us? 
• What made you decide to buy the item(s) in your shopping cart today? 
• What is the one thing you would miss the most if you could no longer use [product name]? 

• What was the one thing that almost made you decide not to buy from us? 

There are numerous sample survey questions for products, especially suited for SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) businesses. Here are a few of them: 

Sample survey questions for new or trial users 

• What nearly deterred you from registering today? 
• What would make you want to utilize us more frequently? 

• On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to suggest us to a friend or colleague?  
• Is our pricing straightforward? What would you alter if it wasn't the case? 

Sample survey questions for paying customers 

• What made you decide to pay for this service? 
• What is the one thing that [product type] has missing? 

• What is one feature that we could implement to make our product vital to you? 
• What is the one thing you would miss the most if you could no longer use [name of product]? 

Sample survey questions for former/churned customers 

• What is the primary reason for your account cancellation? (Please be direct and blunt) 
• What would you change if you could go back in time and change one thing about [product name]? 

• What would you change if you had a magic wand and could change anything about [product name]? 

Conclusion: The types of questions you ask can be one of the most important variables in deciding the survey's effectiveness. 

The questions are the common factor that defines the effectiveness of each survey, from email to SMS. Even for similar queries, different question and answer formats encourage numerous responses. 

Using a variety of question and response types successfully results in more engaging surveys, and including several types of questions or answer choices results in more complete and accurate data.