How & When You Should Use Open Ended Survey Questions

Open-ended survey questions offer a unique way to gather rich and detailed feedback. 

These questions allow respondents to share specific thoughts in their own words, providing businesses deeper insights than multiple-choice and short answers offer. In our experience, open-ended questions can reveal trends and sentiments that might be missed otherwise.

Even though open-ended questions are a part of an overall survey strategy, all businesses can benefit from using them. 

Especially with expert question writing and creation, they can make a significant difference in developing better products, improving services, and making better business decisions.

What Is an Open-Ended Survey Question?

With an open-ended survey question, respondents give their answers in their own words instead of a yes/no or multiple-choice questions (or even short answer). These questions don't limit responses in any way.

Open-ended questions are often used to understand customer feedback better. For instance, instead of asking "Did you like the product?" we might ask, "What did you think of the product?" This approach helps gather diverse opinions and can highlight areas for improvement.

Surprising facts can be uncovered with these types of questions. They can reveal customer pain points or unexpected benefits of a product. 

This deeper understanding is useful for making informed, data-driven business decisions.

These questions work well in various scenarios, from market research to user experience studies. Additionally, they are also great qualitative data that market research experts can use to find important business insights in order to make good recommendations.

What Is a Close-Ended Survey Question?

Close-ended survey questions ask respondents to choose from given options and are best for collecting specific, straightforward information from customers.

These questions often come in multiple-choice, yes/no, or rating formats and other quantitative formats. For example, a question could be: "How satisfied are you with your customer service?" with choices like "Very Satisfied" or "Not Satisfied."

Here are some key advantages:

• Easy to answer
• Simple to analyze
• Provides clear data

Here’s an expert tip: Use a Likert scale for understanding customer satisfaction. It ranges from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree.” This can provide deeper insights into how happy your customers are with your service. (These are very common NPS questions). 

In our experience, using dropdown lists is useful for questions. This method ensures we get detailed, structured feedback while keeping the survey relatively short. 

Close-ended questions are also quick to complete and can lead to higher response rates in surveys since people do not want to be filling out a survey all day

When creating these questions, clarity is key. Make sure each option is distinct and covers all possible answers. 

Avoid making your options too similar, so respondents are not confused.

Open-Ended Question Benefits

Open-ended survey questions bring many benefits to businesses and researchers alike. 

Deeper Insights

These questions allow respondents to express their thoughts in their own words, leading to more detailed and insightful responses compared to closed-ended questions. We refer to this as qualitative data (which means more insights can sometimes be pulled from them with an expert researcher).

Data from open-ended questions can be more complex to analyze, but the rich insights gained can outweigh the effort required. Techniques like content analysis can help in organizing and understanding the responses.

Data Quality Checks

We use open-ended questions as part of a way to check the data quality of survey responses. 

With certain questions, they may be asked to remove any lower quality respondents, bots, or false answers.

More Engaging

For customers, these questions help gather detailed feedback about products or services. By asking what they liked or didn't like, you can uncover specific areas for improvement that might not be evident from simple yes/no questions.

Open-Ended Question Limitations to Know

Open-ended questions are great for getting detailed answers, but they do come with some limitations. Take a look below. 

Time-consuming

Participants may prefer having more time to think about and write in their responses. 

This can lead to lower response rates, as not everyone wants to spend a lot of time on a survey. Ultimately, this limitation has more to do with the actual respondent versus the question style, but it’s still important to consider.

Require More Expertise

Open-ended questions can also be harder to analyze. 

Since people can say so many different things, it's tough to categorize and quantify the responses. We often see a wide range of answers that can be tricky to compare.

In our experience, another issue is clarity. Some respondents may give unclear or incomplete answers. This makes it difficult to understand their true thoughts.

And in some cases, understanding the context is crucial. Without proper context, the answers to open-ended questions might not make as much sense. We often have to guess what the respondent really means.

More Resources

Finally, coding responses for analysis can be resource-heavy. It requires skilled coders to interpret and categorize the data correctly.

Open-ended questions should only make up about 10% of your survey questions. Otherwise, you may run into data analysis and respondent issues.

Recommended Reading: The Pros and Cons of Open-Ended Questions and Closed-Ended Questions

When to Use Open-Ended Survey Questions

In our work, creating surveys right with the best questions makes all the difference. Below are some areas where open-ended questions shine the best.

Employee Surveys

In our experience, one strong use of open-ended questions is using them for employee surveys. By doing this, businesses learn critical insights about the employee experience. This leads to a better workplace culture and can increase employee retention.

What’re more, employees feel valued when they can share their thoughts freely, leading to more authentic responses.

Small Audience Surveys

Open-ended questions work best with small groups. Analyzing each response can be time-consuming, so the smaller the group, the better outcome. If you have a large audience, it might be too much to utilize the questions properly.

Exploratory Research

If you're diving into a new market or topic (projects like concept testing), these questions can uncover insights you didn't anticipate. 

They let respondents share their unique perspectives, often revealing brand new areas to look more into.

Brand Research

Another great area of use is for brand research. You’ll want to get the most detailed information and feedback without limiting what your participants are saying. That’s why at least including some open-ended questions are best.

Open vs. Closed Questions

When conducting surveys, choosing between open-ended and closed-ended questions is crucial. Each type has unique benefits and drawbacks, shaping the kind of data collected.

Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions allow respondents to answer freely. They can express thoughts in their own words. 

For example, "What do you think about our new product?" In our experience, this helps gather detailed, qualitative data. Answers to these questions can uncover insights and trends that might otherwise be missed.

Closed-Ended Questions

Closed-ended questions, on the other hand, offer limited response options. These could be yes/no answers or multiple-choice options. 

For example, "Do you like our new product?" with choices like Yes, No, or Maybe. These close-ended questions are easier to analyze statistically. They provide clear, quantitative data.

Using both types of questions in surveys can help you understand your customers better. Open-ended questions allow for richer, more nuanced answers, while closed-ended questions provide clear, actionable data. We love using both where possible since combining the data from them can be great during the analysis.

Open-Ended Question Examples

Examples of Open-Ended Questions:

1. What is the first company that comes to mind when thinking about [insert industry] companies/providers? Unaided awareness is a classic way of understanding brand awareness and key competitors in the space. 
2. What is the main benefit(s) of being a [customer, member, employee, etc.]? A great question for those who are trying to better understand the customer journey process and the difference between benefits from those with different tenures. 
3. When you think about [insert organization], what word comes to mind? A classic question to help understand top-of-mind brand perception. 
4. What other offerings/products/services would you like [insert organization] to provide in the future? For those trying to better understand what their customers want, this is a great first step to exploring additional product/service offerings. 
5. Please explain why you may switch [insert product/service] companies/providers. This question typically comes after respondents are asked how likely they are to switch providers. Those who provide a rating indicating a high likelihood to switch are asked why, which typically gets to the crux of service/product issues (i.e., customer service issues, price, missing features). 
6. Please explain why you rated [insert organization] as a [insert response] out of 10. This question typically comes after NPS. It’s a true powerhouse question that helps researchers delineate what makes a brand promoter a true raving fan, why passives are on the fence, and what needs to be changed to move detractors up the rating scale. 
7. What is your elevator pitch (a short description) about [insert organization] when speaking to stakeholders in the community? This is an interesting one for non-profit organizations and employee surveys in general. This question helps researchers better understand what respondents see as the mission and core competencies of a brand.
8. If you could change one thing about [insert organization] to improve your satisfaction, what would it be? This is another take on the “magic wand” question. It’s a great way to understand if the brand only fixed one issue, what would that be?
9. Would you be willing to share a testimonial about your experience with [insert organization] to be used for sales and marketing purposes? This is a great consideration for most customer surveys. In addition to the goals and objectives of the survey, we can also gather testimonials for the brand to be used for sales and marketing purposes.
10. Do you have any final thoughts or comments? A true final-question survey hero. This is a great catch-all to consider for brief customer or employee surveys.
    

How To Analyze Open Ended Questions

Analyzing open-ended survey questions can be a breeze with the right approach. First, gather all responses into one place. It’s possible to use a spreadsheet/software for this. Online tools can simplify this process.

Step 1: Gather Responses

First, collect all the responses from your survey. This could be from customer feedback forms, online surveys, or other sources. Ensuring you have all the proper responses is important before going further in the process.

Step 2: Read Through Responses

Read every single response carefully, as this helps you understand what people are really saying. While it may add on some time to the project, it’s 100% worth it in the long run. 

Think of this as walking through a backyard and noticing the different flowers and plants.

Step 3: Code or Classify the Responses

Assign codes to each theme. In our work, we've found that creating a few simple categories makes it easier to see trends. This means assigning a label or a tag to each response based on the category. For example, label positive comments with "P" and negative ones with "N."

Using text analysis tools can save time. These tools can highlight keywords or phrases automatically. In our experience, they uncover insights we might miss.

Step 4: Analyze the Data

Review the coded data to find patterns and recurring themes. It’s key to quantify the data if possible and count how many times each category comes up. This adds a numerical aspect to qualitative data, providing better insight. 

Afterwards, visualize your findings. Charts and graphs can make it easier to present the insights, and we find that our clients always appreciate a clear visual summary.

Contact Our Full-Service Market Research Firm 

Drive Research is a market research company. Our team of research pros will partner with you to create a detailed survey designed with the proper questions to meet your needs. 

To learn about our market research services, get in touch with us.

1. Message us on our website
2. Email us at [email protected]
3. Call us at 888-725-DATA
4. Text us at 315-303-2040

Austin Parker

Austin has an extensive background in SEO as he's been blogging since 16 years old back when the internet was in its infancy. As fitting, he holds a Bachelor's degree in English with a concentration in creative writing.

Learn more about Austin, here.