If you’re creating a survey, you may be wondering whether to use open-ended or close-ended questions. While both question types offer their own benefits, the right question type for your survey will largely depend on the type of data and outcomes you’re looking for.
I’ve found that while many surveys include a combination of both question types, surveys today tend to mostly lean on close-ended questions (and for good reason!)
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Are you ready to dig into how close-ended questions shape your survey results? Grab your free survey templates, and let’s go.
In this article, I’ll discuss:
- What are close-ended questions?
- Why use close-ended questions in surveys?
- When to Avoid Close-Ended Questions in Surveys
- Close-Ended Questions vs. Open-Ended Questions
- Types of Close-Ended Questions
- When to Add Close-Ended Questions to Your Survey
- Building a Well-Rounded Survey
Why use close-ended questions in surveys?
There’s a direct correlation between the type of questions used in surveys and the different kinds of data that they generate.
While there are multiple benefits to using close-ended questions in your surveys, let’s take a look at the top three reasons you’d want to consider using them.
1. They’re easier to answer.
Close-ended questions are likely to be quicker and easier for participants to answer, resulting in higher survey response rates and quicker data collection. If you’re looking to run a large-scale survey, using close-ended questions can help you collect large swaths of data at once.
One study that focused on collecting demographic data reported a 67% completion rate for surveys with closed-ended questions compared to 44.7% for open-ended questions. The researchers determined they could obtain higher survey response rates for demographic data by using close-ended questions versus open-ended questions.
2. They offer straightforward data analysis.
Since close-ended questions use a limited set of structured answer choices, it’s easier to sort the data into categories and analyze it to look for trends. When it’s time to present this data to stakeholders, you can easily pull this data into graphs and charts.
Additionally, you can use this data in real time by pulling it into business intelligence (BI) tools or reporting dashboards. As participants complete the survey, the reporting dashboards can update in real time — versus needing a researcher to analyze open-text responses and sort them manually.
Voice of the Customer Program Manager at AuditBoard, Ting Lai, told me that, “Close-ended questions are definitely easier to analyze and build reporting around. The time delay is really important, because a lot of our surveys are feeding live BI dashboards, so data from close-ended questions is easier to plug into those dashboards live.”
This immediate access to results also empowers you to make decisions around this feedback more quickly.
3. They generate consistent responses.
Since close-ended questions have a predefined set of answers, you’re going to get a consistent and comparable dataset to work with. This removes ambiguity and creates standardized responses, helping you quickly confirm or deny hypotheses.
Since the answers are predefined, analyzing the data is much easier than open-ended questions. It also creates more reliable data due to consistent responses.
When to Avoid Close-Ended Questions in Surveys
While using close-ended questions can help you focus on specific data validation, it often misses the nuance provided by open-ended questions.
In other words, if you’re curious about the “why” behind a choice or behavior, you’re unlikely to get it with a close-ended question.
If you’re looking for deeper customer insights, close-ended questions could be too limiting for getting feedback on things like new product ideas, areas for improvement, or other nuanced insights.
I sat down with Mike Christopher, customer experience manager at AuditBoard, who has been in the CX industry for the last 13 years. I asked him when he would opt for an open-ended question over a close-ended question, and here’s what he said:
“When you build a survey, you kind of work backwards from the intended outcome … Leaving [a question] open-ended gives the respondent the chance to kind of tell you anything.”
On the other hand, Christopher says, “Anytime I want to get more meaningful detail from the participant beyond just them checking a box, I’d include an open-ended question.”
My conclusion? Because open-ended questions are better at getting people talking (and result in more unexpected insights), they tend to be a better choice than close-ended questions if you want to explore a topic or understand the reasoning behind something like customer behavior.
Close-Ended Questions vs. Open-Ended Questions
Close-Ended Questions
As I mentioned earlier, close-ended questions are quantitative questions designed to gather specific responses, and they include a predefined set of answers for the respondent to choose from.
Questions with options for Yes/No, a rating scale, or defined multiple choice answer options would be considered close-ended questions.
Close-ended questions are great to use when you have a pretty good idea of your intended outcomes, or you’re looking to validate a specific set of options.
Ways to Use Them
Close-ended questions are applicable to nearly every type of survey where you’re looking for quantitative feedback. Since these types of questions are focused on a specific set of responses, they can be especially useful for:
- Gathering demographic information. Asking respondents for things like age range, geographic location, etc. can be done quickly and easily with close-ended questions. (I know I’d much prefer using a pick list to answer those questions than typing it all out!)
- Measuring opinions or sentiment. NPS surveys or customer satisfaction surveys use a close-ended rating structure which makes the data easy to analyze and compare.
- Understanding customer preferences. Using close-ended questions can help you narrow down what your customer views as a priority. For example, giving them a list of potential new feature enhancements and having them choose their top priority can give you insight into what they care about the most.
Open-Ended Questions
Open-ended questions are qualitative questions that allow participants to share their thoughts freely without choosing from predefined options. This question type allows participants to decide how much detail to give in their response, and it requires the respondent to take a moment and formulate an answer.
For example, a survey question that asks “Tell me what type of beverage you start your day with” would be an open-ended question. You can imagine that asking this question would likely generate a variety of different responses, creating a vastly different dataset than our earlier question about starting the day out with coffee.
Because of the level of detail and nuance in open-ended responses, more time goes into analyzing that data and finding themes and insights.
Ways to Use Them
You often see open-ended questions in usability studies, as researchers want to understand the user’s behavior and thought process without limiting them to predefined answers. I find this to be a good rule of thumb, and suggest using open-ended questions when you’re curious about the “why” behind something.
For example, you can use open-ended questions in:
- Employee feedback surveys. Complementing the close-ended questions in your employee feedback survey with some open-ended ones ensures that your employees have ample room to express their opinions in their own words. Chances are you’ll want to understand why they gave certain ratings, and open-ended questions help you do that.
- Customer experience surveys. Including an optional open-ended question after asking the customer to rate their experience or satisfaction allows them to elaborate on the “why” behind their rating.
In my experience, customers want to feel heard and know that their feedback is getting to the right place. This method not only gives you key insights but also allows the customer to express their satisfaction (or frustration) in their own words.
- Product validation. Gathering deep insights like customer expectations and pain points from open-ended questions is critical to building a product that works for your users. You can create a tagging framework to help better sort the open-ended feedback into categories that will help you later on.
- Follow-up questions. Including an open-ended question after a close-ended one can help you better understand a participant’s answer choice. Try to limit the number of these you include in a survey, though, so it doesn’t start to feel tedious for the participant. (Survey fatigue is real!)
While both types of questions are very different in their structure and output, they each add their own unique value to a survey.
Next, let’s look at a few different types of close-ended questions that can help you on your journey to gather structured data.
Types of Close-Ended Questions
1. Dichotomous Questions
Dichotomous questions offer only two possible answers — usually “Yes/No” or “True/False.” As you might imagine, these types of questions are typically quick to respond to and easy to analyze.
2. Multiple-Choice Questions
Anyone who’s taken a test before is familiar with the structure of multiple choice questions. These questions provide a list of options where respondents can choose one or more answers.
Multiple choice questions can be quick and easy to answer for respondents while giving them a bit more freedom in how they respond.
3. Rating Scale Questions
Rating scale questions ask the participant to choose a number or descriptor that aligns with their rating, usually concerning their satisfaction or experience. CSAT, NPS, and other relational surveys typically include a rating scale to gauge a customer’s sentiment or satisfaction.
4. Likert Scale Questions
Likert scale questions measure a participant’s opinions on a series of statements. Participants consider the prompt and then choose from a selection of answers that range from opposite extremities.
Pro tip: Christopher told me that while not everyone loves a Likert scale, he finds a lot of value in them when used in the right way. “These types of questions can add value to the analysis, especially if your goal is to look for correlations. Likert scales can help you get more nuance, but you have to make sure you label the scale in a way that your participants understand,” he says.
5. Ranking Questions
Ranking questions can help a researcher understand participants’ priorities or preferences by having them make direct comparisons. These types of questions can help identify top and bottom choices within a set, giving researchers insight into necessary focus areas.
Pro tip: Christopher told me that he’s not a big fan of these. “People can have a hard time stack ranking, especially if some of the options are equally important to them,” he says. “I like to try to force people to prioritize by only allowing one or a few selections, depending on the question. It makes it easier to analyze the data when you’re encouraging prioritization.”
6. Checklist Questions
Checklist questions are a type of multiple-choice question where participants can choose multiple options from a predefined list. This style of question can require more analysis, but it could be helpful in capturing broader insights while still using a close-ended question format.
When to Add Close-Ended Questions to Your Survey
“Both close-ended and open-ended question types are key when building a well-rounded survey,” says Christopher.
“Using them together keeps the target of your survey well defined with close-ended questions but also offers respondents the chance to add context and detail with open-ended questions. It‘s important to make sure you not only consider the outcome of the survey, but the effort you’re asking your respondents to put in to help you get insights.”
Here’s a summary of when you’ll want to consider close-ended questions over open-ended ones:
- If you know the specific outcomes you’re looking to validate.
- If you need to easily gather large sets of quantifiable data.
- If you’re gathering demographic information, asking participants to prioritize or rate something, or identifying specific answers to a question you have.
Building a Well-Rounded Survey
Now that we’ve explored close-ended questions and their benefits, I understand why most surveys utilize them. They’re easier for participants to answer, and the data is easier for researchers to analyze, which is a win-win.
However, based on my research, I’d say if you’re looking for deeper customer insights, there’s definitely a use case for including both close-ended and open-ended questions in a survey — especially if your open-ended question serves as a follow-up to a close-ended one.
