A friendly reminder that you should always have someone else review your questionnaire. You don’t want to commit the great acts of survey fail that these survey authors did.

10. Make sure your choices match the question.

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9. Double-check the labels on your scale.

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8. No, seriously, double-check the labels on your scale!

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7. Don’t always keep the wording from the prior question.

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6. Don’t always keep the choice list from the prior question, either.

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5. Test your survey. Please.

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4. There’s a big difference between “choose one” questions and “choose all that apply”.

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3. Hire a proofreader.

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2. One of these things is not like the other.

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1. Don’t create a survey experience that dissatisfies customers.

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Author Notes:

Jeffrey Henning

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Jeffrey Henning, IPC is a professionally certified researcher and has personally conducted over 1,400 survey research projects. Jeffrey is a member of the Insights Association and the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers. In 2012, he was the inaugural winner of the MRA’s Impact award, which “recognizes an industry professional, team or organization that has demonstrated tremendous vision, leadership, and innovation, within the past year, that has led to advances in the marketing research profession.” In 2022, the Insights Association named him an IPC Laureate. Before founding Researchscape in 2012, Jeffrey co-founded Perseus Development Corporation in 1993, which introduced the first web-survey software, and Vovici in 2006, which pioneered the enterprise-feedback management category. A 35-year veteran of the research industry, he began his career as an industry analyst for an Inc. 500 research firm.