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Determine Survey Length and Number of Questions

Determine Survey Length

Streamlined surveys yield the highest response rates. The shorter the survey, the more likely your survey participants are to complete it.

The survey length should have a trade-off between the number of relevant questions asked, and the optimal length that will entice someone to respond. Consider not using supplemental questions, but only questions that are pertinent to your survey research aims.

Branching: Conserve Survey Space

This skip-logic feature, “branching” allows respondents to skip certain questions in surveys based on how they answered a previous question(s).

By only answering questions logical to the respondent’s situation, the survey length is made shorter and makes for higher response rates.

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Intelligent Looping

This feature loops a series of questions for a particular answer to conserve survey space.

For example, if someone answers “3” to a question asking how many cars he or she has, Intelligent Looping can ask a set of questions for each car (e.g. What is the make and model? What year is the model? When did you last have it serviced?).

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Question Type

Certain question types use drop-down and scrolling menus to conserve survey space and increase convenience for your survey participants. Also, some questions can be in a grid format, which allows Survey Administrators to ask several similar questions within one question type.

Click here for samples of Question/answer types that conserve survey space

Pre-Population

This feature allows Administrators to shorten survey length by inputting any relevant, known information about respondents (name, gender, company, age, etc.) directly into the survey.

This eliminates the need for questions that extract personal information and other facts already know about survey participants. Pre-population also enhances your survey relationships because you identity with respondents by name and other personal information.

Click here for samples of Pre-Population in Surveys