1. Include a brief (2 or 3 sentences) introduction to the questionnaire telling the respondent about the
questionnaire, thanking the respondent, detailing the estimated time to
completion and assuring respondents of the confidentiality of their answers.
This will help increase the response rate.
2. Begin the survey with a screening
question(s), to make sure the person you are going to interview is qualified to
answer your questions. You want people that are familiar with your
product/brand/ service/topic to be participating in the survey. The key to the
qualifying question(s) is that if the respondent’s answer is ‘no’ to being
familiar with or using the product or service, then the survey is terminated
and the person does not participate. (Example: I am interested in the
perception of Tesla customer service among Tesla electric car owners. My questionnaire
targets are current or former Tesla owners. Therefore, my screening questions
could be: “Do you currently own a Tesla?”
If yes, continue with the survey.
If no, ask, “Have you ever owned a Tesla?” If yes, continue, if no, terminate.)
3. As you develop questions, ask
yourself the following to determine if you should use each question: “Does each
question produce information that is necessary to address the research objectives
of the study?” If the answer is no, do not include the question.
4. Use a variety of survey question
types including ratings, rankings, forced choices, and semantic differential
scales, to answer your research questions. Keep in mind the types of
questions you ask may limit the method of analysis and quality of the
information you can get from analyzing the data.
5. Related to point four, consider
using Likert-type questions when measuring attitude and satisfaction.
They are easy to construct and easy for respondents to fill out.
(Example: Please indicate your level of agreement with the following
statements using the 1 to 5 scale below).
6. When using semantic differential
questions, make sure that the descriptors are true opposites of each other.
Semantic differential scales use polar opposites that respondents are
asked to choose from to best describe something. For example, weak and
strong, indecisive and decisive, cheap and expensive. Picking the wrong opposite can yield
misleading results.
7. Demographic questions go at the
end of the questionnaire unless key demographics are required for screening
respondents in or out. Ask demographic questions that are relevant to your
research. These might include age, income, family size, employment
status, geographical location, and other information. These answers will
provide useful cross tab analysis by showing response differences between men
and women, purchase interest in a product by income level, or influence of
family size on product attributes.
8. Be sure that response categories
have no problems with mutual exclusiveness. (Example: Your age choices should
not be 18-25 and 25-30 because if someone is 25, which category do they belong
to?) Also be sure categories have equal breaks. For example, the
age break of 18-24 has seven ages so all of the age breaks should have seven
age breaks.
9. The questionnaire should be easy
to complete with clear instructions, clear and simple wording and be neat looking.
For example, if a respondent answers a particular question with a no, they are
clearly directed to a different follow-up question than if they answered yes.
(The pretest will help with this part!)
10. Always pretest! But be sure
to pretest among the target respondents. If you are conducting research
among mothers with children who are heavy users of laundry detergent testing
the questionnaire among college students will give you misleading
results.
* Herb Brotspies is an Adjunct Professor of Marketing (Retired) at Nova Southeastern University. For further information, contact Dr. Brotspies at hvb95@aol.com. Suri Weisfeld-Spolter, Ph.D., is a Professor of Marketing at Nova Southeastern University. She can be reached at sw887@nova.edu.
