How To Write Customer Survey Questions

It's easy to write customer survey questions - it's much harder to write ones that you're able to draw conclusions from the answers given.

For example, if you ask the question:

Please select the modes of transport you use regularly:

1) Car
2) Train
3) Cycle
4) Bike
5) Bus

You will be able to produce high level figures for how many people selected each mode of transport.

However, if you ask the question:

Please select your primary mode of transport? This is the mode of transport that you use the most.

1) Car
2) Train
3) Cycle
4) Bike
5) Bus

Not only do you have high level figures of how many people use each mode of transport, but you also know that these figures represent their primary mode of transport.

Unlike the first question, you know that the respondent (if they have filled out the survey correctly) will only have selected one mode of transport. In the first survey question, they could have selected more than one mode of transport making it impossible to conclude which is the most used primary mode of transport.

You could then ask the same question for their second and third most used mode of transport. This would enable you to produce conclusions such as:

23% of respondents who selected the car as their primary mode of transport also selected the bus as their second mode of transport.

It would enable you to understand the relationship between the various modes of transport given in the survey question - not just show the high level figures.

When writing customer survey questions, you also have to think from the respondents point of view.

You must never assume that they will know how to answer the questions. Always give them help and explain what they need to do.

For example, here are two potential questions:

Please select your primary mode of transport?

Please select your primary mode of transport? This is the mode of transport that you use the most.

Both are asking the same thing, but the second one is making it absolutely clear what the word 'primary' means.

For more information on customer survey questions, please click the link below:

customer survey questions