Survey Answers 101: 10 Actionable Tips and Best Practices

A lot of surveys fail not because of poor questions, but because of poorly written answer options.

Think about the last survey you abandoned. Chances are, you couldn't find an answer that matched your opinion, or the choices were so confusing you gave up halfway through.

Well, it sucks if you don't get the response rate you want because well you want to make decisions based on it. But writing a good survey answer is a skill you can master, and it can drastically improve the response rate of your surveys, the data quality, and ultimately your business decisions.

Why Survey Answers Matter More Than You Think

Survey answers or response options are basically the foundation of quality data collection. 

The difficulty level of crafting effective survey responses mostly depends on how strategically the questions are asked and how well the answer options are designed. If the questions are leading or confusing, or if answer choices overlaps with one another or miss key options, it will be harder for your respondents to provide accurate feedback.

Also, while it may seem easy to write survey answers, getting this act together is requires a tad bit of precision and strategy.

Writing effective survey answers is quite similar to writing effective survey questions. But there are certain nuances unique to writing survey answers that you need to know about.

In this guide, we'll walk you through 10 actionable tips and best practices with real examples which you can use to come up with precise, objective answers for your survey questions that increase response rates and deliver better data

These strategies are used by 1000+ businesses on SurveySparrow to achieve response rates upto 40% more than how much they used to get.

Ready? Let’s dive right in.

1. Begin with the End in Mind

Before you write your answers, you need to know how you’re going to use them.

Ask yourself these:

• What are you looking to learn from your customers or users?
• What kind of response are you hoping to gather from your target audience?
• Will you need quantitative data for charts and reports, or qualitative insights for deeper understanding?

You’ll want to gain in-depth information about a complex topic or just a simple response in a word or two.

And for the analysis:

Close-ended questions are quantifiable making them easier to analyze and use for making informed decisions. But when it comes to open-ended questions, they are more complex to analyze but provide richer insights.

Pro Tip:

When you collect open-ended responses, unstructured data can pile up quickly. That's where proper text analytics software becomes the need. It’s part of SurveySparrow’s offerings. To ensure these solutions perform optimally, the right infrastructure is essential. Application server software provides the backbone necessary to handle such AI-driven analytics, enabling seamless data processing and scalability.

SurveySparrow's AI-Powered Text Analytics - CogniVue is an AI-powered solution that uses AI (NLP, ML & more) to analyze vast amounts of unstructured data and extract actionable insights.

What insights you get:

• Most discussed topics
• Most used keywords by your respondents
• Customer emotions and sentiment
• Key drivers behind your business success

Free Resource: Download free templates from the Templates library.
Get 1000+ pre-written, research-backed answer options for every type of survey question. 

Try CogniVue 

 2. Use Simple Language and Avoid Jargon

Your respondents shouldn't need a dictionary or Google search to understand your survey.

Avoid using industry words that survey respondents are not familiar with.

When you use jargon, you force your customers to use a dictionary or the internet to understand what you mean. This makes them frustrated and unhappy.

Actions Steps:

• Double-check if you’ve included any overly technically or words with multiple meanings
• Use simple, direct language that your customers will find easy to understand. If you’ve used any acronyms or abbreviations, simplify them so respondents can understand them better
• Your answer options need to be immediately understood by your customers in order to get the responses you seek
• Test your survey with someone unfamiliar with your industry

Your answer options need to be immediately understood by your customers in order to get the responses you are looking for.

Tip – Use AI to Generate Questions

SurveySparrow AI allows you to create surveys from scratch within minutes. It’s just like ChatGPT. Just put in the prompt and watch the magic unfold before you.

The AI feature is available in the free forever plan from SurveySparrow. So, feel free to try them out!

3. Answer Options Should Be Mutually Exclusive

One common mistake people make is to provide respondents with two similar answer options.

It can be confusing for your respondents to pick an option if there are two or more similar answer options.

You need to make sure that your answer choices are exclusive of each other and don’t overlap.

For instance, if the question below were to be asked to respondents whose age is 35, which option would they choose? The third or fourth option?

Which age group do you fall under?

• Under 18
• 18 – 25
• 25 – 35
• 35 – 45
• 45 – 55
• 55 – 65

The Rule: 

Each respondent should be able to select one and only one, and that answer should accurately represents them.

Here’s an example that would help the respondents quickly pick a relevant answer.

Which age group do you fall under?

• Under 18
• 18 – 24
• 25 – 34
• 35 – 44
• 45 – 54
• 55 – 65

Your answer options need to be mutually exclusive so your respondents can make clear choices.

4. Good Survey Answers are Collectively Exhaustive

As a survey researcher, you need to make sure that you provide your respondents with every possible relevant question.

If a respondent can't find an answer that fits them, they'll either skip the question or abandon your survey entirely.

So it's a good rule of thumb to give them the Other option that lets them give an answer in their own words if none of the answer options apply to them.

What to do? 
Review your list of answer options to see if you’ve added all the potential answers your respondents will expect.

Incomplete Options

How would you like to be contacted? 

• Email
• Mail
• Facebook

What if the respondent prefers phone calls? Or LinkedIn? This list is clearly incomplete.

Comprehensive Options 

How would you like to be contacted?

• Email
• Phone call
• Text message (SMS)
• Mail
• Social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)
• Other (please specify): __________

Pro Tip: Before finalizing your answer options, run a small pilot test with 5-10 people. If multiple respondents select "Other" and write in the same answer, that option should be added to your main list.

5. Provide an Alternative Answer

There are several scenarios where the respondent can’t or won’t answer a question.

Maybe it's because it asks for their personal information and comes off as  too intrusive. Or maybe the question does not apply to them. Sometimes they simply don't have enough information to answer accurately. 

In such cases, you need to offer an escape route for these respondents. If you force these respondents to pick an answer, they'll either abandon your survey or pick an answer that is inaccurate, corrupting your data.

Use alternative answers when asking about:

• Personal information (income, age, health)
• Opinions on topics respondents may not have knowledge about
• Experiences they may not have had
• Preferences that may not apply to everyone

To make sure this doesn't happen, you can provide your respondents with answer options such as:

• "Prefer not to answer"
• "Neutral" / "No opinion"
• "Does not apply"
• "I don't know"
• "Not applicable (N/A)" 

6. Add Labels to Rating Scales

Rating or opinion scale questions provide your respondents with numerical scales that comprise numbers as answer options.

In addition to the numbers you’ve displayed, you need to add labels explaining the value of those numbers.

Without labels, respondents may interpret scales differently:

• Some may think 1 is the best (like rankings)
• Others may think 10 is the best (like grades)
• This inconsistency destroys your data quality

For instance, in an NPS survey, you ask: “How likely are you to recommend us to your friends or colleagues?”, and you provide your respondents with a numerical scale that ranges from 0 to 10.

Now you convey the value of the numbers on this scale with labels. You tell them that 0 means they’re least likely to recommend your business, and 10 means that they’re highly likely to recommend your business to their friends or colleagues.

Best practices for scale labels

✓ Do:

• Label both ends of the scale (minimum and maximum)
• Add a midpoint label for scales with 5+ options
• Use consistent language that matches your question
• Make labels specific and actionable

✗ Don't:

• Assume respondents know what numbers mean
• Use ambiguous terms like "good" or "bad"
• Create scales where higher/lower could be interpreted either way

7. Change the Order of Your Answer Options

Your respondents might be a little disinterested in completing your survey and might speed through it so they can be done with it quickly and move on to whatever interests them.

This is called "satisficing", giving satisfactory rather than optimal answers. Rather than giving you answers that truly reflect their opinion, they blindly pick the same exact option for every one of your questions.

The problem here is this behavior is called "straightlining" and it ruins your data quality.

As a survey researcher, how do you get prevent these and get you your quality responses?

One way to get them to give you accurate answers is by simply reversing the order of the answer options.

For instance, one question could range from “strongly disagree to strongly agree” and the following question could range from “strongly agree to strongly disagree”.

Example: Alternating Scale Direction

Question 1:
"I find this product easy to use."

○ Strongly Disagree
○ Disagree
○ Neutral
○ Agree
○ Strongly Agree

Question 2:
"The product interface is confusing." (Note: This is a negatively-worded question) 

○ Strongly Agree
○ Agree
○ Neutral
○ Disagree
○ Strongly Disagree

8. Answer Options Should Be Balanced

You need to keep your response choices balanced. Why?

Because answer options, when not balanced, can introduce bias in your surveys

For instance, if you ask your respondents: “How satisfied are you with our product?” and provide them with these answer options: “Very satisfied”, “Satisfied”, and “Somewhat satisfied”, you assume that your users are satisfied on some level, which normally isn’t the case.

Well, then, how do you keep your choices balanced?

You need to have as many positive choices as negative. You successfully eliminate bias when you have an equal number of positive and negative answer choices.

Examples:

Balanced scales:

• Give respondents the space to be critical
• Produce more accurate data
• Increase trust (respondents see that you want honest feedback)
• Enable better decision-making based on real sentiment

9. Do Not Use Absolutes

Absolutes are words such as “never”, “always”, “worst”, “best”, “all”, “any”, “every”, “ever”, etc.

Response choices with absolutes usually don’t apply to your respondents.

Why? Because respondents can never fully agree or disagree with answer options that use absolutes.

Absolutes make your answer options too rigid and force your respondents to pick an option that’s inaccurate.

The solution is to provide your respondents with a variety of choices that are more specific.

For instance, “once a week — once a month” rather than “never — always”.

Let's see an example:

Using absolutes:

How often do you exercise?

• Always
• Never

These are the only two options? What about people who exercise sometimes? This forces inaccurate responses.

Using specific frequency ranges:

The solution is to provide your respondents with a variety of choices that are more specific.

How often do you exercise?

• Daily (7 days/week)
• 4-6 days per week
• 2-3 days per week
• Once a week
• Once a month
• Less than once a month
• Never

Now respondents can select an answer that actually matches their behavior.

Here's a list of absolute words that weaken your survey:

• Never, always, ever
• All, none, every, any
• Best, worst
• Perfect, terrible
• Completely, totally, absolutely
• Everyone, no one

Use these instead:

• Frequency scales: "Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Rarely, Never"
• Percentage ranges: "100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, Less than 25%"
• Degree scales: "Very often, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never"

10. Avoid Too Many Answer Options

The number of answer options you provide your respondents influences their responses.

The reliability of the answers decreases as the number of questions increases.

Respondents are overwhelmed and find it difficult to pick an option when there are way too many options to choose.

You should rank your answer options by importance and not have more than 5 or 6 options.

Wrapping Up: Putting It All Together

To conclude, how you ask your questions is as important as the answers you ask them to pick.

Writing effective survey answers isn't just about following rules or a checklist...it's about understanding your respondents and making it easy for them to give you honest, accurate feedback.

Use our tips above to write good survey answers that will help you collect high-quality information from your target audience.

Here are some related articles from us to help you learn more about creating and conducting surveys:

• 12 Types of Survey Questions to Gather All Kinds of Information
• The Essential Guide to Writing Effective Survey Questions
• What Are the Different Types of Surveys?

Want to see these principles in action?

Don't just take our word for it. These best practices are used by 1000+ businesses on SurveySparrow to create surveys with.

Looking to create surveys that people love answering? Feel free to check out SurveySparrow.