Survey best practices

How to write a good survey, choose the right audience and analyze your data—the best tips from Attest's research experts!

Academy best practices

What survey question types are there?

Attest Academy question types

Here’s a rundown of the main question types and how you can use each to get the best insights for your brand. 

Single choice

Single choice questions help you learn what the top answer is for your respondents by forcing a clear decision on the question. 

This single-choice question is from a survey to US consumers about home workouts and workout equipment.

Multiple choice 

Multiple choice questions allow you to learn a variety of preferences from your target audience, as respondents can share with you what appeals to them from all of the answer options. 

This multiple-choice question is from a new product development survey about a new product for people to use when they’re traveling.

Grid question

You use grid questions to present multiple items to respondents, and ask for a multiple- or single-choice answer in response, with the answer options remaining the same across all items. Grid questions are often used to establish the frequency of different consumer behaviors, or preference for different items, with a fixed Likert scale offered as a response to all items. 

This grid question is from a brand tracking survey about make-up in the UK.

Ranking questions

Ranking questions help you learn respondents’ clear preferences from all options listed since they are asked to put them in order. With the Attest platform you can also see the aggregated ranking score from all respondents, giving a relative prioritization. 

This ranking question is from a brand tracking survey about plant-based milks.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is a super important metric to learn how your brand is doing over time. It’s best to use an NPS question in surveys that you will run consistently over certain periods (e.g. quarterly) and then compare consumers’ likelihood of recommending you over time as you carry out more brand-building activities.    

This NPS question is from a brand tracking survey about makeup, sent to consumers in the UK.

Likert scale

A Likert scale is a gradual scale measuring a consumer’s attitude to a statement. A stand-alone Likert scale can easily be created using a single choice question type, or used as the answer options in a Grid question. 

The scale should be evenly weighted between positive and negative responses, with a central point for a neutral response. For this reason, Likert scales often have 5 points, for example:

  • Strongly agree (with statement)
  • Slightly agree
  • Neither agree nor disagree
  • Slightly disagree
  • Strongly disagree 

Or, in the example below…

Open text

Open text helps you learn the context behind why a respondent answered the way they did. It’s great to put them after a single choice question to understand in greater detail why a certain answer was selected, or add them after other question types to get more context around any aspect of a question or response.

Here’s an example of an open-text question from a tracker about UK food brands.

Video responses

This is a type of qualitative question where respondents record a video of their response.

It gives you a deeper level of detail because you get verbatim feedback from your respondents. But because respondents record their answers in their own time—rather than in a moderated setting like a focus group—it can be a more cost-effective and faster way to gather qualitative data. 

Learn more about video responses—why you might want to gather video responses, how to do it and the essential dos and don’ts.

The Consumer Research Academy is brought to you by the Customer Research Team—our in-house research experts. Any research questions? Email or chat with the team.

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