Size matters in a lot of things – tall mountains, big lattes, cars that seat eight, waterfalls and more.
But, have you ever wondered when size matters in a survey? Have you ever wondered, “How many questions should your survey have?”
In this article, we look at the answer to these questions and explain why size matters when it comes to the number of questions in your survey.
How Many Questions Are Enough?
Short surveys have a better response rate. Additionally, surveys that stick to one topic also have clearer, more accurate responses.
When it comes to the number of questions, you want to aim for a five-minute completion time. If you go any longer than that, you’ll lose your respondents’ interest.
To keep your survey right at or under five minutes, ask no more than 10 questions. In fact, we suggest you aim for around five.
Craft Your Questions
Now that you know to keep your survey questions under 10 and ideally around five, it can be hard to decide what to ask.
The best practice is to first outline your survey objectives. (tweet this) For example, if you want to know what your customers think about your newest product, don’t ask them a question about the service they had at their last visit.
Keeping to one objective helps you stay on task and ask just enough questions to meet your goal. This helps you ditch the irrelevant questions and stick to what you need to know.
By keeping your survey questions to the minimum amount possible, you also encourage more respondents to complete the survey and not abandon it.
Final Thoughts
Finally, here are a few more best practices:
- Don’t ask anything you aren’t prepared to take action on shortly after the survey.
- Don’t ask misleading questions. Be clear and to the point.
- Stay away from biased questions.
- Ask only one question per question. Sometimes surveyors will stick two questions in one, and this only confuses respondents.
If you have several objectives or topics you’d like to survey, it’s a good idea to create a survey for each of them. Spread your surveys out over time so you aren’t bombarding your customers.
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Images: Wil Stewart