A survey is a research method used to collect data from a specific group of respondents. They can have multiple purposes, and researchers can conduct them differently. In 2022, surveys will have high popularity, so it is crucial to understand the benefits of social research by using the right survey tool.
Business management rules and guidelines are built from the survey results and can be changed or corrected. This process involves asking people for information using a questionnaire, which can be online or offline. However, with the advent of new technology, they are distributed online through social media, email, and QR codes. The most frequently asked questions are:
- What is the best example of an open-ended question?
- What is the best example of a closed-ended question?
- What is the best example of a rating question?
- What is the best example of a Likert scale question?
- What is the best example of a multiple-choice question?
This article will give examples of questions and surveys based on famous brand cases.
Survey Questions Types
Choosing the relevant questions will allow you to focus your efforts on getting the most relevant information from respondents. Below are 6 of the most popular types of survey questions. They are different and suit different survey purposes.
Open-ended questions
An open-ended question implies a free answer from the respondent, i.e., the interviewee formulates the answer himself. This question in the survey should be asked when it is necessary to identify, for example, the motives that guide the consumer when making a purchase. Examples of open-ended questions:
- We would like to hear from you about why you use Plerdy:
- Do you have a complaint about our service?
Closed-ended questions
The closed-ended question invites the respondent to choose, in their opinion, the appropriate answer from the offered ones or to evaluate any given parameters, characteristics of goods, properties or services, etc. Examples of closed-ended questions:
- Do you have any pets at home?
- Yes
- No
- Do you use the Plerdy service?
- Yes, often
- Yes, but rarely
- No
Rating questions
Rating questions display a scale of answer choices (0 to 100, 1 to 10, etc.). The respondent chooses the number that most closely matches their answer. Examples of rating questions:
- How likely would you recommend Plerdy to your colleagues? Where 0 is not likely and five is very likely:
- How often do you use the Plerdy service? Where 0 is very rare and five is very often:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Likert scale questions
Likert scale questions are usually limited to five categories, and mapping more than that is generally quite difficult. Examples of Likert scale questions:
- How much do you agree with the statement that Plerdy is the best SEO service?
- Strongly agree
- Agree
- Neutral
- Disagree
- Strongly Disagree
- How often do you recommend Plerdy?
- Always
- Often
- Sometimes
- Rarely
- Never
Multiple-choice questions
Multiple-choice questions are the most commonly used in surveys. They allow respondents to select one or more options from a list you specify. They are intuitive, easy to use in various ways, provide easily analyzed data, and offer mutually exclusive options. Examples of multiple-choice questions:
- What is your current employment status?
- Employed
- Currently unemployed
- Retired
- Housewife
- Student
- Other
- How much do you like ice cream?
- Strongly like
- Like
- Neutral
- Don’t like
- Hate
Picture choice questions
Picture choice questions are a great way to make your survey more interactive. You can cover almost any topic with it. Examples of picture-choice questions:
Demographic questions
Demographic questions should be used if you are interested in collecting information about the respondent’s background or income level. When used properly, these questions in the survey allow you to understand your target audience better. In addition, demographic questions are potent tools for segmenting your audience by background and occupation, allowing you to delve further into the data. Examples of demographic questions:
- What’s your gender?
- Male
- Female
- What is your income?
- $1000
- $2000
- $5000
- $10000
Survey Questions Best Practices
When designing a survey, it is essential to consider how you formulate the questions. It is not enough to guide by the examples we showed you above. There are some things to keep in mind:
- Keep the wording simple
Avoid complex turns of phrases when formulating a question. Otherwise, the user may get confused by your wording. Instead, it is best to ask in a straightforward sentence.
Wrong: “Yesterday, when you were at the conference and came up to the Plerdy representative, how did they serve you?”
Correct: “How did the Plerdy representative serve you last night?”
- Use several variations of the question.
This will help you choose the best option that captures the point. It may be appropriate to apply the same question to different periods. For example: “What time management techniques are you going to implement in the next week/month/year?”
- Don’t set clear limits.
Your survey should have answer options such as “Can’t say,” “Don’t know,” or “Haven’t thought about it.” The respondent should be able to avoid answering. This builds trust and increases the conscientiousness of the questionnaire filling.
13 Survey Questions Examples from Real Brands
To be able to design chic surveys and questions for them, you need to know how famous brands do it. So we’ve rounded up 13 examples of well-known brands that use surveys in their work.
Airbnb
Airbnb offers a user-friendly survey with a series of questions that can help Airbnb better understand why the recipient chose Airbnb as their provider. Although Airbnb uses different questions in its surveys, the most popular are open-ended and Likert scale questions. In addition, Airbnb surveys are in-depth, prompting customers to provide as much detail as possible.
Uber
Uber uses rating questions all the time, both among drivers and passengers. They appear after each trip and allow you to leave your feedback. These surveys help the company understand how quality drivers work in their service and how bona fide passengers are. Uber also provides the results of these rating questions to drivers and passengers. Based on them, they can decide whether to cooperate or not.
Slack
Slack makes the survey seem more exclusive by mentioning that it was only sent to a few people. In its surveys, Slack primarily uses closed-ended and multiple-choice questions. As a result, slack creates middle-sized surveys that don’t take much time from clients. It also notifies clients about the approximate time needed to pass the survey. This reduces the number of times a client has started a survey but not completed it.
Skype
Skype constantly asks for feedback with just three questions long. As you can see, Skype uses rating, closed-ended, and open-ended questions. This ensures that the client will leave his feedback at least with one question.
Amazon
When gathering feedback from clients, Amazon also uses three questions. Rating questions ensure that the client will leave feedback and the open-ended question is for those who want to express their emotions or experience. Amazon is meticulous about surveys, so it uses straightforward questions.
Anyone can use the “Polls” feature to ask for customer feedback. Many brands love the Twitter Polls option because it’s not a formal sit-down survey. We recommend you try this feature if you have a Twitter account with a large target audience. This will help you collect feedback quickly. You can even publish several such polls in a row, which will not harm your brand. But don’t overdo it.
HubSpot
HubSpot primarily uses closed-ended and Likert questions in its surveys. This ensures the easiness of survey passing. However, HubSpot knows how greatly clients don’t like complicated services. And this is the main rule HubSpot is guided by when creating surveys.
INBOUND
To improve the experience every year, INBOUND asks for feedback. As a result, its surveys consist of almost all types of questions. This helps them gather deep data and make the survey more interactive. And as they claim, interactiveness plays a significant role in ensuring the survey is filled with full correctness.
A&W Canada
A&W Canada focuses on simple surveys. As a result, its surveys use mostly closed-ended questions with only two answer options. And these answer options are in the form of emojis. Surveys with emojis use not so many companies, so A&W Canada is an excellent example of questions with emojis.
Nordstrom
To simplify the survey for the customer, Nordstrom provides quick 2-3 minute surveys. They touch on details covering both clients’ experience and the quality of the product. Nordstrom is a brand that can teach a lot about survey design and question formulation. So pay attention to this example.
Starbucks
Usually, this brand conducts surveys in mobile or web form. Starbucks mainly uses multiple-choice questions in its surveys. But they don’t forget to allow the customer to exhaust their thoughts at the end with an open-ended question. Starbucks surveys are ideal for time-sensitive customers.
Sodexo
Sodexo is like A&W Canada in terms of surveys. It focuses on simplicity. Its surveys use closed-ended questions with only two answer options. And they also provide opportunities for clients to add their thoughts to the answers if necessary. Consider this example when creating your survey.
Ikea
Ikea knows that many people don’t like surveys. Because of this, it creates 1-minute surveys with closed-ended questions. Then, they regularly follow up and request customer feedback on the experience. This helps them to get as much feedback as possible.
Greyhound
Here’s a customer support survey example that includes the main fields for sending questions to the Greyhound company. Existing customers or prospects can leave their contact information, trip details, and descriptions to request help. The central question is, “What subject can we help you with?” It narrows down the request and is probably used by Greyhound to filter requests and assign them to different departments. Such segmentation is an effective way to enhance customer service and optimize the support team’s efforts.
Hem&Stitch
The customer satisfaction survey is an excellent example of a rating scale to place on a website. It directly prompts users to share what they think about the company rating it from one to five (or very dissatisfied to very satisfied). The question “How satisfied were you with Hem&Stitch is concise and clear, which makes people more likely to respond.
Such survey questions usually pop up when someone leaves the website. The exit may mean that the person has already used the services and formed an opinion.
Panda Software
The “Would you describe our brand as” survey is pretty creative. The cybersecurity software company provides responders with five adjectives describing the brand: simple, innovative, expert, inspiring, and responsible. They need to rate each adjective based on the overall impression.
This approach wouldn’t give you an exact customer experience score, but it allows you to understand your image. Since such a format is unusual, people may more willingly interact with it.
Athena
The underwear and apparel brand shows a pop-up form asking, “How did you hear about us?” to collect statistics on the main traffic channels. The options are social media, postcard ads, Google or Bing searches, local events, articles, and word of mouth.
These details are highly valuable for evaluating the efficiency of existing marketing efforts and tailoring a future strategy. If you detect that one of the channels doesn’t generate customers, there is no point in keeping investing in it.
Weex
Weex is a digital wallet for Mexican users. That’s why this survey question example is in Spanish. It asks, “Hi! We’ve noticed that you have been inactive in Weex lately, which would help us know why.” Afterward, a respondent needs to choose one of the options like “I don’t understand how it works,” “I wanted to use it but encountered a problem,” “I haven’t needed to use it,” etc.
Companies usually utilize such survey questions to retarget dormant customers. This way, a brand can remind leads about its services and learn why the activity has declined.
Apple
Apple uses simple Yes/No buttons to evaluate whether its tech support pages are helpful. You see step-by-step instructions for the issue you’d like to solve, and then, at the end of the page, you need to evaluate the content.
That’s how Apple detects the pages that need improvement without complex web analytics systems. It also allows the website visitors to contribute and makes them feel valued and heard.
Upwork
Upwork is a leading world marketplace for a reason. The platform has always been open to feedback and implemented the recommended changes. This survey example illustrates it. Upwork asks freelancers what they would do if they could set job preferences. Respondents have multiple preferences to assess based on their value (high or low). For instance, users can estimate the value of job connects amount, project start and end dates, and other settings.
The gathered information is intended to guide Upwork in improving job search functionality for freelancers.
City Taxi
City Taxi publishes a website survey to detect the most effective acquisition channels. They list the resources where the service is advertised and the Other option. If you consider posting such surveys on your website, you should also enable users to select Other. Customers may come from very unexpected places. Thus, it’s better to give them more freedom of choice through additional options.
Kaseya
Kaseya supplies IT management software to companies all over the globe. Since the brand operates in the B2B segment, it promotes the services by participating in live events. Given that online surveys are less beneficial under such circumstances, Kaseya installed a Genius Bar at the recent showcase event in Las Vegas. The kiosk asked visitors for simple feedback about the company.
Such kiosks are a decent alternative to online surveys if you work offline or focus on the business-to-business market segment.
Qualtrics
Qualtrics is an experience management company that helps businesses analyze their customers. To discover whether they are satisfied with the outcome, Qualtrics uses a satisfaction survey. Titled with the request “Based on your most recent experiences, please rate your satisfaction with Qualtrics for each of the following,” it gathers customer feedback in three categories: overall quality, value, and purchase experience.
Namecheap
Namecheap sends this feedback form at the end of each customer support request. The survey encourages users to participate with the phrase, “Your feedback is very important to us and will help us improve our customer support experience.” After the introductory thank-you line, people select the CSAT score and NPS. The first question is about general satisfaction, and the second is about the readiness to recommend Namecheap to a friend. The responders also can leave any additional comments they want.
Droplr
This form is an example of a one-question survey you can show on a website or send as an email. Besides standard elements, this request includes an Unsubscribe button. It may be necessary if you send surveys to people who have previously subscribed to your newsletters and must enable them to opt-out. Droplr promises that the survey will take just a moment, and it does.
Four Minute Books
This website offers over 1,000 free book summaries for people who don’t have time to read massive books. An on-page survey asks readers what they want (Get rich/ Have better habits /Be happier) to select the most appropriate reading options. After clicking one of the buttons, the website forwards you to the next screen with more detailed questions. Here you need to specify your interest again. Once you finish, you enter an email to receive a short list of suitable books.
Conclusion
Now you have examples of questions used in surveys by famous brands. As you have realized, there are a lot of factors to consider when planning a survey and choosing the type of questions you want to ask. Creating a survey may be confusing initially, but remember, this is the foundation of your data analysis. Your subsequent work will be much easier if you get data right at this stage.
