Industry Survey Question Examples
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Fri, Dec 31, 2010
This week we're counting down the Top 5 posts published to Voice of Vovici in 2010. Surprisingly to me, coming in at #3 is this post on a prosaic topic: asking a respondent's industry. This post was originally published January 20.
The most annoying question in any business-to-business survey is the dropdown box with the list of industries you are supposed to choose from. It is tedious to scroll through, as you try to find the label that most closely matches your industry-if any do.
Oh, well, at least the survey author is using your answer to drive real insight and value...
But, wait, they're not. Because they have dozens of categories, most have too few responses to make a valuable cross-tabulation. You're not going to bank on conclusions from those three respondents who work in finance.
Intelligently capturing the industry of a respondent is a key part of a firmographic profile in a survey. What's the best way to do it?
- Ditch the dropdown box. It is only a good user interface option when respondents know what choices the list contains without clicking on it: for instance, for a state, province or country dropdown. Industry lists vary too much from questionnaire to questionnaire to be good candidates for dropdown boxes.
- Consider your analysis. The smaller your expected sample size, the less valuable a long closed-ended list of industry responses is. Why not provide a fill-in-the-blank text box and let the respondent type whatever they want? This will widen your understanding of your respondents. For your next survey, you can use it to customize a list of closed-end choices.
- Go deep. Use a hierarchical question, where respondents select a high-level category and then drill down for more specific options. You can analyze at the top level, and as cell sizes fill in, provide deeper detail. This works best when you are collecting tens of thousands of responses, such as in a transactional survey.
- Reject the standard. Forget about the conventional list of industries, but write one for your market. For instance, for niche markets that sell indirectly, a good industry list might focus on distribution: "Wholesale Trade", "Retail Trade", "E-commerce Trade", "Value Added Reseller", "Custom Manufacturer" and "Other". Another niche market used the following choice list: "Microelectronics, Lifesciences/Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Aerospace/Defense, Safety, Electronics, Food Services, Automotive, and Other."
- Use a template. Don't reinvent the wheel. Put a new hubcap on it, maybe, by modifying one of the following.
NAICS Industry Question Example
The following choice lists uses top-level sectors from the 2007 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), allowing you to map data back to third-party information on industries.
Q. NAICS
What is the principal industry of your organization?
11 Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting
21 Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction
22 Utilities
23 Construction
31-33 Manufacturing
42 Wholesale Trade
44-45 Retail Trade
48-49 Transportation and Warehousing
51 Information
52 Finance and Insurance
53 Real Estate and Rental and Leasing
54 Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
55 Management of Companies and Enterprises
56 Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services
61 Educational Services
62 Health Care and Social Assistance
71 Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation
72 Accommodation and Food Services
81 Other Services (except Public Administration)
92 Public Administration
Streamlined Industry Question
What follows is a less verbose template.
Q. Streamlined Industry List
What is the principal industry of your organization?
( ) Agriculture, Mining
( ) Construction
( ) Finance, Insurance, Real Estate
( ) Government
( ) Health Care
( ) Internet
( ) Manufacturing
( ) Retail, Wholesale
( ) Services
( ) Transportation
( ) Communications, Utilities
( ) Nonprofit
Do you need slightly more detail? Split some of the conjoined choices (e.g., "Agriculture, Mining") into separate selections.
Done properly, you can ask respondents for their industry without annoying them, while gathering the data that will be most useful to your analysis.
Please share some of your examples of good industry questions in the comments.