How many questions are useful in a survey?

Insights from Dennis – 08/21

It’s August and we’re in the middle of the vacation season. Dennis also took a few days off and flew south – he deserves it, even a CEO needs to relax sometimes.

Since feedback is a popular tool, especially in the tourism industry, Dennis was confronted with the topic again even before he returned to the office. Immediately after landing, while still at the airport, Dennis found a customer satisfaction survey from the airline in his e-mail inbox. Here, the airline had apparently set some triggers: The passenger was on board, the landing had taken place, and so he received the survey about 20 minutes later. Sending the mail so early has the advantage that the passenger is directly asked about the experience and can still remember everything well.

As a feedback expert, Dennis had no choice to take a look at the airline’s survey, examine its implementation and, of course, give his personal feedback.

The following points in particular caught his eye: The airline’s survey had a simple structure and was quick to answer. Answering the questions took only 5 – 8 minutes. Questions asked included about the flight and the airline’s service. The questionnaire mainly contained closed click questions, and only at the end did the survey contain a text field for comments. All questions were declared as mandatory. Due to the good implementation, the survey encouraged Dennis to give feedback on all questions. The airline thus implemented well some important points to pay attention to when designing a survey.

But let’s get back to the question of the meaningful number of questions in a survey. Unfortunately, there is no blanket answer or patent remedy for this. However, there are several indicators to consider when launching or designing a survey. A good approach is the following rule of thumb:

The greater my bond with the participant, the more questions I can ask.

The greater the bond, the more I can demand from the participant and the more complex the questions can be. If, on the other hand, I have no personal contact and therefore a very low bond with the survey participants, the questionnaire should be shorter and the questions simpler. This way you minimize the dropout rate.

Let’s return to the example of the airline customer satisfaction survey. Here, there is a low retention rate and a mixed audience. Participants have different levels of education, are business travelers or vacationers, frequent flyers or first-time flyers, etc. In order to include all participants, care must be taken to ensure that the questions are not too complex and easy to understand. A short survey with a maximum of 10 questions and a duration of 5 – 8 minutes is a good benchmark here.

The situation is different, for example, with a survey on employee motivation. There are two advantages here: On the one hand, the employee is close to the company and has a strong bond with it. And on the other hand, the employee himself benefits from taking part in the survey. For example, he benefits from adjustments to increase employee satisfaction. These two indicators make it possible to extend the survey in terms of complexity and duration, so that it is possible to stretch the survey duration to 20 – 30 minutes.

However, there are also situations in which a long complex questionnaire is not very useful, despite close ties. For example, a survey after a contact with support or a survey about the newsletter. In both examples, we have a close relationship because we are dealing with customers or at least strong prospects. In the example with the support, there was a personal contact, which also originated from the participant himself. He contacted the company seeking advice, and at best he was helped quickly and competently. So all the factors are actually present that would allow us to present the customer with a detailed questionnaire.

But it is always good to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and ask yourself how you would act in this situation. In the example given, the customer may have contacted support with a short question that could be answered quickly. Now he receives a follow-up questionnaire that takes 30 minutes to answer. Only very few participants are willing to answer this questionnaire. On the contrary, the questionnaire could also inhibit participants from contacting support with further questions, as they fear that they will then have to fill out this long questionnaire every time. The recommendation at this point is not to overdo it despite the existing commitment, but to keep the questionnaire short and to the point.

We hope you enjoyed today’s Insight. With our rule of thumb, you can easily determine with which audience you can ask more questions and with which you’d better keep it short and simple. To do this, look at the bond you have with your attendees – the bigger, the more questions you can ask.

Are you unsure about the number of questions? Then just try it out. Create a survey, find a small test group and send them into the field. Then look at the response and dropout rates and how the survey is received. If something doesn’t fit, adjust your survey again if necessary and you’ll have the right length for your survey. We wish you good luck with the trial and error.