What are effective survey questions to help me better understand my customers?

[Grace_R]

An often-asked question we've heard from some is "I'd like to send out a survey to my customers in order to better understand them. But I'm having trouble formulating questions. What should I be asking in order to get useful responses?"

What advice/tips do you have to help?

[MelanieDiehl · Accepted solution]

I've found that the shorter the survey, the higher the completion rate, so start with the most vital questions. You can always send a follow-up survey with more questions at a later date. One Question Surveys have a very high completion rate, but that may not work for your specific situation.

That said, a combo of both open-ended and yes/no questions seem to work best. "On a scale of" questions tend lead to murky/vague data.

Position the questions around their pain points rather than around your business. People love to talk about themselves.

Hope that helps!

[MelanieDiehl · Accepted solution]

I've found that the shorter the survey, the higher the completion rate, so start with the most vital questions. You can always send a follow-up survey with more questions at a later date. One Question Surveys have a very high completion rate, but that may not work for your specific situation.

That said, a combo of both open-ended and yes/no questions seem to work best. "On a scale of" questions tend lead to murky/vague data.

Position the questions around their pain points rather than around your business. People love to talk about themselves.

Hope that helps!

[PeggyR67]

Thanks for the tips! I'll keep them in mind when I design our first survey!

[Chris-S · Accepted solution]

Flexing some of my User Experience Design muscles, I concur with @MelanieDiehl  that the most effective survey questions were those that were closed-ended. These questions give respondents a predetermined set of answer options, such as multiple-choice, rating scales, or yes/no questions. They are simple to answer and yield insightful data.

Another type of question that proved successful was Likert scale questions, which require respondents to rate their level of agreement or disagreement with a statement on a scale, usually ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. These types of questions are useful for measuring attitudes and opinions on a specific topic.

Additionally, incorporating demographic questions into a survey can provide valuable insights by allowing for data segmentation based on factors like age, gender, location, or occupation. This can help identify the preferences and needs of different user groups.