Selecting the Perfect Question

Learn how to pick a question that gets the most feedback and measures just the right thing.

Measure what matters

A well-chosen question helps you to target your actions better and more comprehensively. We recommend using a more generic question such as “Please rate our service today”, or “How was your workday?” because it will help you measure satisfaction levels more broadly. It will also most likely generate more feedback than a more specific question because more people will have an opinion on the service in general than a specific aspect of it.

Choose your question based on what aspect of your service you want to measure. If you have a very specific question such as “How did you find our coffee?” you will only get feedback concerning coffee – nothing about tea or other beverages, not to mention about something completely different, such as the waiting time or attitude of the staff.

No yes or no questions

Avoid questions that can be answered yes or no. People love having options, so select a question where people can use all four smiley buttons to express their feelings. It’s also beneficial for you: It’s easier to prioritize the order of your improvement actions by identifying the red spots that need immediate action.

The good old question

We recommend using the same question for a longer period of time instead of changing it often. This ensures continuity in your feedback results, which makes it easier to track patterns and trends.

If you change your question daily, it can be difficult to monitor the influence of your improvement actions. If today’s question has nothing to do with the question from yesterday, the feedback results are not comparable to each other, since you are measuring two different things. By using the same question for a longer period of time you can track changes in satisfaction compared to previous weeks/months.

We recommend using the same question for a minimum of one month but preferably at least two months to better track trends and patterns and to take seasonal changes into consideration.

If you have challenges in getting enough feedback, it might, however, be worth changing the question or follow-ups to get more results.