One question many businesses have when they are designing both customer and employee surveys is how to encourage respondents to answer all the questions to get the best possible answers.
Sometimes if questionnaires are not designed well or the multiple answer questions are not well formulated, respondents can leave the survey early.
However, there are some ways to ensure your survey respondents are answering all your questions to their best ability.
When making a multiple choice question, ensure you keep the list as short as possible. Overly long lists will turn participants off and increase the chances they begin to pick their answers at random or click the "I don't know" instead of reading through the list.
Avoid adding more than 12 options. If you cannot narrow down these choices, consider breaking it down into multiple questions and answering each with an abbreviated list.
These lists should be randomised to avoid any bias.
Make sure your entire survey is kept short and snappy. Always keep the basic objectives of the study in mind when preparing questions as this will help to ensure you keep them on subject.
If it is going to be too difficult for the respondents to supply the information you require, see if there is another way to ask.
Framing the question in a different way may allow you to get the answers you are looking for. Alternatively, see if you can reword and simplify your question.
Online surveys in particular need to be clear and concise in order to retain people's attention.
Make sure you time your survey. It should not take any longer than 5-10 minutes to complete as anything longer will create frustration and lead to higher drop out rates.
Keep this in mind when pre-testing the questions.
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