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Build effective surveys using likert scale questions!
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When you are asked after shopping how satisfied/dissatisfied you are with your experience, the question is an instance of Likert scale questions.
These question types help to measure attitudes and opinions in more detail statistically. Let’s explore its structure, uses, and how you can write one for your survey.
Likert questions can help you gauge respondents’ feedback and opinions using a psychometric scale.
While the respondents don’t get answer options like ‘yes/no,’ or ‘true/false,’ the Likert scale questions provide them with a range of options starting from “completely disagree” to “completely agree.” Giving respondents a wide variety of options empowers researchers with specific feedback about a product/service.
These questions usually come up with a 5, 7, or 9-point scale for seamlessly measuring respondents’ opinions or agreements with respect to a particular scenario.
While answering a survey, customers prefer to express their views fully instead of being restricted to a binary question. Likert scale questions help offer this opportunity as the scale offers a range of answer options attributing to customers’ attitudes or opinions.
For example, with Voxco, you can create interactive surveys with the simple drag-and-drop interface. Voxco gives you access to various question types to help you capture variations in the audience’s attitude.
Voxco helped Frost & Sullivan conduct 100K surveys across 300 industries.
Likert scale survey questions are a great way to measure satisfaction, agreement, likelihood, and importance. While such a question can be used in any survey, it is popularly used for customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and market surveys.
A Likert scale survey question is most used in a satisfaction survey. It helps organizations understand what patients, customers, and prospects think about the products and services.
Likert scale question on customer satisfaction examples:
Employee surveys can help you understand how to boost morale, productivity, and communication within the organization.
Likert scale question examples:
For marketing surveys, such as concept testing, price assessment, brand awareness, etc., Likert scale survey questions can help you identify and resolve pitfalls. By learning directly from customers about their preferences and expectations, you can better position your brand against the competition.
Likert scale question examples:
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Now that we have explained when you should use this question type let’s also take a look at how you can craft one to get reliable results.
A clear goal will help you follow the next step. You should have a definite understanding of what you want to quantify.
Let’s say you have noticed cart abandonments on your online shopping website in the last month. So you can use Likert questions to evaluate customers’ attitudes regarding the shopping experience.
With Voxco, you can deploy a standalone Likert scale survey as a website pop-up and gather real-time data.
Now that you have established a goal, you should identify indicators that can help you understand what’s causing cart abandonment. These indicators will help you write Likert scale questions.
For example,
Several variables can influence customer experience and decisions. Create a list of these variables and build questions focusing on these variables.
When using a Likert scale for your survey, you have to make two decisions
For the semantic scale, you need to use response options that are unambiguous and easy to understand. For example, when you use the scale “Always – Often – Rarely – Seldom – Never,” how would the audience differentiate between “rarely” & “seldom.” How would you quantify between the two?
For clearer understanding, use terms that relay specific meanings. Instead of “Rarely,” you can use “Twice a week/month.”
When it comes to using odd or even Likert scale questions, it depends on what kind of data you want to collect & how to evaluate the result.
Odd-numbered questions, such as a 5-point or 7-point scale, give respondents a neutral option. However, using an even-numbered scale compels respondents to choose either the positive or negative side. This helps you in evaluating responses in these two categories.
Test of your survey by sharing it with your friends and colleagues. A soft launch can help you discover problem areas in your survey and allow you to sort out the mistakes.
A soft launch will help you revise and improvise your survey & help you ensure that you collect reliable data.
There are four basic types of questions you can use for a Likert scale survey. These questions are based on the types of responses/answer options. A researcher should ensure that when they use the Likert question type, they do so with online survey tools that offer them a diverse range of answer options.
Strongly agree – agree – neither agree nor disagree – disagree – strongly disagree
The questions help you gauge the varying levels of agreement among your customers to a particular question.
Likert scale agreement questions:
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Very satisfied – satisfied – neither satisfied nor dissatisfied – dissatisfied – very dissatisfied
This type of Likert scale question helps you understand how satisfied your respondents are with your organization and its products/services.
Likert scale satisfaction questions:
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Very likely – likely – neither likely nor unlikely – unlikely – Not likely at all
This type of question helps you discover the possibility of your customers adopting a behavior. For example, the “likelihood to recommend” measures the possibility of your audiences recommending your brand to others.
Likert scale likelihood questions:
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Very important – somewhat important – neutral – somewhat unimportant – not important at all
This type of Likert scale questions helps you evaluate what aspects of experience is important for the audience.
Likert scale importance questions:
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Now that we have explored the four types of Likert questions, let’s check out how you can write them for your surveys.
The survey questions need to be simple and easy to understand for the audience for you to gather accurate data. So, here are some tips on writing Likert scale questions.
The responses to the Likert questions should be in perfect balance with an equal amount of negative and positive variables. This allows respondents to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with your question.
Following the previous point, when you want your question to evaluate positive and negative attitudes, your scale should range from ‘none’ to ‘maximum.’
For example, instead of using “useful” to “useless,” it’s better to use “very helpful” to “not at all helpful.” Unipolar scales are easy to understand and offer clear indicators.
Keep the scale consistent in its order of displaying the variables. If your question options range in ascending order (1 is extremely dissatisfied, and 5 is extremely satisfied), follow the same order for all the other Likert scale questions in the survey.
Using consistent scales will also help you in the data analysis. The analysis involves finding the average in all responses. So, with inconsistent scales, you can’t achieve accurate measurements.
Apart from the response variables in your questions, you also need to make sure the question itself is specific to the survey goal.
Write your Likert scale questions to gather specific data on specific aspects. If the survey is to gauge customer experience with the product, specify which aspect of the product. Is it the quality of the product, the ease of use, the price, or the design?
Leverage an online survey tool that offers you diverse question types allowing you to write focused questions.
Questions allow respondents to ponder over their responses. Whereas a statement is most likely to evoke acquiescence bias. Acquiescence bias results when respondents select positive or agreeable answer options.
So, instead of saying, “I am satisfied with the price range”, ask, “How satisfied are you with the price range?”
Customers get thousands of surveys across social media and email. You can’t assume they respond to you only because they are your customers.
Design your surveys creatively, so the customers look forward to responding to your surveys. Write your questions to give them a personality. Instead of “Satisfied – Neutral – Dissatisfied,” try “Loved It – Meh – Big Nope.”
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Likert questions are simple to create and easier to respond to. This question type allows you to gauge and quantify customers’ attitudes and opinions and provides actionable insights.
Listening to customers and understanding their sentiments towards your products and services helps improve your business. Go beyond Likert scales with the best market research software to gather experience insights and take strategic actions.
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