Open-ended questions are just one of many types of questions. They allow respondents to answer in an open text format, providing full knowledge. This means that the answer to an open-ended question is not limited to a set of options. Use an open-ended question when you want to better understand your customers and their needs, get a greater context of their actions, or investigate the reasons for their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with your product. An open question should encourage respondents to provide helpful information and give them the freedom to answer in their own words.
Open-ended question examples
Examples of open-ended questions for qualitative research may take various forms: independent questions or a continuation of a closed-ended question. Open-ended questions will be great for various types of satisfaction and contentment surveys. Asking an open-ended question will help you understand the direct feelings of customers or employees going beyond the template. Open-ended questions will help bridge the gap between your offer and people's expectations.
- Would you recommend our services to others? Give a reason.
The experiences of people who recommend your services to others are essential for your business. So ask them if they would recommend you and why. It will also help you find out what are the things that are stopping your respondents/clients from recommending your services to others.
- What factors usually influence your purchase?
Such an open-ended question is a perfect example of a research survey. It aims to detect factors that may affect customers' purchasing decisions. This is important as companies may not be able to predict everything their customers can expect at times. Answers can help you improve certain factors and introduce new practices to attract and retain customers.
Open and closed question
Open-ended questions do not necessarily encourage respondents to comment on the topic when creating an online questionnaire. Therefore, it is possible to introduce mandatory questions. Don't put too many blank fields to get a high response rate.
An empty field allows the respondents to express themselves freely on a given topic. Thanks to this, we can learn the mental patterns of individual survey participants, allowing us to identify the emergence of new practices or new opinion trends.
The use of closed-ended questions simplifies the processing of the obtained responses. Interests allow you to view the results in real-time and display information in the form of percentages and charts.
The open question in a survey
