Writing Good Survey Questions

Get reliable results and actionable insights from your surveys.

If you take the time to write good survey questions and poll questions, you’ll be well on your way to getting the reliable responses you need to reach your goals.


But the decisions don’t end there! You’ll also have to decide how to ask your questions. Check out our tips for writing great survey questions below. Once you’ve read through these, you’ll be writing survey questions like a pro in no time!

7 Tips for Writing a Great Survey or Poll

  1. Focus on asking closed-ended questions. Open-ended questions (also known as free-response questions) require more effort and time to answer. As a result, asking too many of them can lead respondents to leave your survey sooner than if they were asked closed-ended questions instead.


  2. Keep your survey questions neutral. Putting an opinion in your question prompt (or asking a “leading question”) can influence respondents to answer in a way that doesn’t reflect how they really feel.

    Say you asked the leading question:




  3. Keep a balanced set of answer choices. Along the lines of our last point, respondents need a way to provide honest and thoughtful feedback. Otherwise, the credibility of their responses is at risk.


    a. Extremely helpful
    b. Very helpful
    c. Helpful

    You’ll notice that there isn’t an opportunity for respondents to say that the reps aren’t helpful. Again, we need to make the tone objective, but this time by adding a more balanced set of answer options:

    a. Very helpful
    b. Helpful
    c. Neither helpful nor unhelpful
    d. Unhelpful
    e. Very unhelpful

  4. Don’t ask for two things at once. Confusing respondents is equally as bad as influencing their answers. In both cases, they’ll choose an answer that doesn’t reflect their true opinions and preferences.





    “How would you rate our customer service?”


    “How would you rate our product’s reliability?”

  5. Keep your questions different from each other. Imagine if someone asked you the same question over, and over, and over again.

    You’d probably get annoyed, right?



  6. Let most of your questions be optional to answer. Respondents may not know the answers to all of your questions. And there may be some questions they simply don’t feel comfortable answering.


  7. Do a test drive. As a survey or poll creator, there’s no worse feeling than finding mistakes in your survey or poll once it’s already sent.



The better your surveys and polls get, the better your responses become. So apply these best practices when writing your questionnaire today! Create survey.

3 quick tips to improve survey response rates


1. Be quick


2. Offer incentives


3. Buy a targeted audience


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