October 1, 2021<\/p>\n
October 1, 2021Surveys are essential tools to enrich your CRM and measure customer satisfaction. But to collect actionable answers, it is really important to avoid biased questions. Here are a few examples of biased questions to never use in a customer survey.<\/p>\n
Asking your customers questions helps you get to know them better: who they are, what they think of you, their expectations, etc. Satisfaction surveys<\/a> enable you to collect very useful information and to improve your offer and customer service.<\/p>\n But this is only true if your questions are well phrased! If not, the result will be poorly qualified answers that are difficult to act on and interpret. You should therefore take all the time you need to build your survey and carefully phrase your questions.<\/p>\n In this article, we would like to draw your attention to so-called biased questions. A biased question is a question that steers the respondent\u2019s answer in a certain direction, sometimes deliberately but more often than not, unconsciously. Biased questions are a problem in the sense that they undermine your answers. It\u2019s really important to avoid them. Your questions should remain as neutral as possible, so as to not influence your customers\u2019 choices.<\/p>\n The best way to avoid biased questions is to look at a few examples.<\/p>\n A rather crude example of a biased question, which fortunately is quite rare, is one that explicitly and deliberately leads the respondent to answer a certain way. For example: “Do you plan on buying an electric car in the near future, bearing in mind that this type of vehicle emits half the amount of CO2 and reduces your energy costs?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Do you want to know what your customers think of your customer service? Then it would be a mistake to ask this type of question:<\/p>\n “Our customer service has been received several awards. Were you satisfied with our service and did we help you solve your problem?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This type of question encourages respondents to reply affirmatively. The person who wrote this question is clearly trying to get as many positive answers as possible, even if it means undermining the truthfulness of the answers. If you want to know what your customers really think, then avoid biased and embellished questions. To learn more, read our article 4 Simple Ideas to Quickly Satisfy your Customers<\/a>Even better, ask a targeted and precise question, such as: \u201cDid you receive a quick answer?<\/em>\u201d. The more precise the question, the more useful the answers.<\/p>\n
\nFor some, any question that doesn\u2019t provide satisfactory results is biased. In which case, lots of questions fall into the biased category.<\/p>\n1. Biased Questions that Explicitly Lead To an Answer<\/h2>\n
\n“Do you plan on buying a diesel car in the near future, bearing in mind that this type of vehicle pollutes more and that the price of diesel isn\u2019t that different to the price of ordinary petrol?<\/em>\u201dThe second part of the question clearly influences the respondent. In this example, the respondent is encouraged to say no. Sometimes, the question can lead to a yes, such as:<\/p>\n2. Biased Questions that Value a Brand<\/h2>\n
\nGenerally speaking, it is best to avoid superlatives and meliorative adjectives. Don\u2019t ask: \u201cWhat do you think of our friendly customer service?<\/em>\u201d, but simply, \u201cwhat do you think of our customer service?<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n3. Closed Questions that Should be Open<\/h2>\n