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How To Shorten a Questionnaire

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According to recent Vovici research, respondents’ most frequently expressed wish for surveys is that they be short. Long surveys lead respondents to answer later questions without fully thinking through their answers, leading to quality problems. The longer a survey we subject a respondent to, the less likely they are to take the next survey they are invited to. So long surveys are bad for the respondent, the sponsor and the industry as a whole.

Here are some practical tips for shortening questionnaires.

Shorten for the Respondent’s Perspective

The key technique is to shorten the questionnaire from the respondent's perspective.  Hiding questions, showing random subsets of questions and asking questions in a later survey are all ways to shorten this particular survey from an individual's perspective.

• Skip Respondents Past Inapplicable Sections – Use skip patterns to show respondents only the subsets of the questionnaire relevant to them.  Don’t make respondents read questions about products or services they don’t have or can’t have.
• Import Answers – Use CRM data to pipe in answers to “hidden questions”. Rather than ask them their demographic question for the umpteenth time or add details of their customer service call, pipe it in from your CRM system.
• Randomize Displayed Sections – For less important sections, randomly display only one section to each respondent. For long attribute lists, create different versions of the question showing different subsets of the full list.
• Use Fewer Pages – For online surveys, page submits add a burden, so the fewer pages the better for the most part.
• Keep the Questionnaire Interesting – Respondents perceive interesting surveys as shorter! Keep the language and topics engaging.

Actually Shorten the Survey

Of course, almost any questionnaire has questions that you should remove. Here are some tips for identifying them.

• Keep Your Focus – Remove the “nice to have” questions that don’t directly address the goal of the survey.
• Ask Only Most Important Questions or Attributes – A common research tactic is to have three similar questions on similar topic. Use factor analysis to determine which questions or attributes are most important.
• Don’t Ask Esoteric Questions – Cut questions that make distinctions only apparent to those within your organization.
• Don’t Set False Expectations – Remove questions that raise issues that can’t be addressed (for customers, free services; for employees, extended vacation time).
• Reduce the Size of Matrix Questions – Remove rows from grid questions, hide rows that aren’t applicable to a respondent and get rid of the “Other” row.
• Break into Multiple Questionnaires – If the survey is still too long, trying breaking it up and sending invites to subsets of your respondent list.

Remember, shortening your survey is good for respondents, your data quality and for the industry as a whole. Asking many questions? Cut it out!

See also:

• The Long and the Short of Questionnaire Length
• Matrix Question Best Practices
• Perceived Questionnaire Length