An open ended question is the best way to ask respondents to disclose their income

If you’ve ever used a survey in a research or evaluation project, you may have encountered unanswered questions by some respondents. Even if respondents are able to answer a particular question, they may be unwilling to do so. There are usually four key reasons why respondents sometimes don’t answer questions in surveys.

1. It’s too much effort

Most respondents are unwilling to devote a lot of effort to provide information, unless they are provided with an incentive to do so. Suppose the researcher is interested in determining which museums or galleries the respondent went to recently. This information can be obtained in one of two ways. The researcher could ask the respondent to list all of the things they saw at the museum or gallery, or the researcher could provide a list of exhibitions and ask the respondent to tick the applicable ones. The second option is preferable because it requires less effort from respondents.

2. The context is not explained

Some questions may seen appropriate in certain contexts but not in others. For example, questions about leisure activities may seem appropriate when conducting a survey for an entertainment precinct but not when part of an employee satisfaction survey. Respondents are unwilling to respond to questions that they consider inappropriate for the given context. Sometimes the researcher can manipulate the context in which the questions are asked so that the questions can seen appropriate.

3. The purposes doesn’t seem legitimate

Respondents can be reticent to divulge information they do not see as serving a legitimate purpose. Why should an organisation hosting a music festival what to know income level and occupation? Explaining why the data is needed can make the request for the information seem legitimate and increase the respondents’ willingness to answer. A statement such as ‘To determine how this event can better plan for people of various ages and occupations, we need information on…’ can make the request for information seem legitimate.

4. The information is too sensitive

There can be an unwillingness for respondents to disclose sensitive information, because this may cause embarrassment or threaten their self image. If pressed for the answer, respondents may give biased responses, especially during personal interviews. Sensitive topics include money, religion, family life, sexual orientation, and involvement in accidents or crimes.

Tips for increasing willingness to respond

A number of techniques may be adopted to increase the likelihood of obtaining information that respondents are unwilling to give.

• Place sensitive topics at the end of a survey. By then initial mistrust has been overcome, rapport has been created and respondents are more willing to give information

• Preface the question with a statement that the behaviour is of interest

• Ask the questions using the third-person technique, that is, as if referring to other people.

• Hide the question in a group of other questions that respondents are willing to answer.

• Provide response categories rather than asking for specific figures. For example, income brackets. In personal interviews, give the respondents cards that list the numbered choices. The respondents can indicate their choice by number and feel somewhat removed.

Think carefully about the questions you need to include in a survey or interview for a social research or evaluation project.  It can be automatic to include standard demographic questions, for example, that may be unnecessary for your purposes. Rather than providing you with useful information, they can have the effect of alienating your respondent, creating an unwillingness to respond, and consequently discouraging them from completing the interview.

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Unless you’re a mind reader, the only way to find out what people are thinking is to ask them.

That's what surveys are for. But the way you ask the question often determines the kind of answer you get back—and one of the first decisions you have to make is: are you going to ask an open-ended or a closed-ended question?

👇 No time to read? Press Play and listen, instead!

Open-ended questions are broad and can be answered in detail (e.g. "What do you think about this product?"), while closed-ended questions are narrow in focus and usually answered with a single word or a pick from limited multiple-choice options (e.g. "Are you satisfied with this product?" → Yes/No/Mostly/Not quite).

By understanding the difference between the two, you can learn to ask better questions and get better, more actionable answers. The examples below look at open- and closed-ended questions in the context of a website survey, but the principle applies across any type of survey you may want to run.

Use Hotjar to build your survey, place it on your website or send it via email, and get the customer insight you need to grow your business.

Pre-built survey templates

The difference between open-ended and close-ended questions is that close-ended questions provide a specified range of questions that the respondent must choose from, while open-ended questions allow respondents to respond as they wish. To get a better idea of these two types of questions, let’s take a closer look at each.

What are open-ended questions?

Open-ended questions are questions that cannot be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and instead require the respondent to elaborate on their points.

Open-ended questions help you see things from a customer’s perspective as you get feedback in their own words instead of stock answers. You can analyze open-ended questions using spreadsheets, view qualitative trends, and even spot elements that stand out with word cloud visualizations.

A wordcloud generated from open-ended question responses to "What do you like about Hotjar?"

What are closed-ended questions?

Closed-ended questions are questions that can only be answered by selecting from a limited number of options, usually multiple-choice questions with a single-word answer , ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or a rating scale (e.g. from strongly agree to strongly disagree).

Closed-ended questions give limited insight, but can easily be analyzed for quantitative data. For example, one of the most popular closed questions in marketing is the Net Promoter Score® (NPS) question, which asks people “How likely are you to recommend this product/service on a scale from 0 to 10?” and uses numerical answers to calculate overall score trends.

Quantitative data from a closed-question nps survey

When to use open-ended questions and closed-ended questions

Whether you’re part of a marketing, product, sales, or user research team, asking the right questions through customer interviews or on-site surveys helps you collect feedback to create better user experiences and—ultimately— increase conversions and sales.

As a rule of thumb, the type of question you choose depends on what you are trying to achieve:

• Ask a closed-ended question when you want answers that can be plotted on a graph and used to show trends and percentages. For example, answers to the closed-ended question “Do you trust the information on [website]?” will help you understand the proportion of people who find your website trustworthy versus those who do not:

• Ask an open-ended question when you want to develop a better understanding of your customers and their needs, get more context behind their actions, and/or investigate the reasons behind their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with your product. For example, the open-ended question “If you could change anything on this page, what would it be?” allows your customers to express, in their own words, what they think you should be working on next:

7 examples of open-ended questions vs closed-ended questions

Most closed-ended questions can be turned into open-ended questions with a few minor changes. Here’s an example: on the left- hand side, you have closed-ended questions; on the right-hand side, each question has been tweaked into an open-ended version that allows respondents to elaborate further.

• All the closed questions in the left column can be answered with a one-word answer, specifically Yes or No.

  These answers can give you the general sentiment of each user and a few useful data points about their satisfaction, which can help you look at trends and percentages

  —for example, did the proportion of people who declared themselves happy with your website change in the last 1, 3, 6, 12 months?

• The open-ended questions in the right column give customers an opportunity to provide additional information and help you understand the context behind a problem or learn more about your USPs (unique selling points) instead. So if it’s qualitative data like this you’re after, the easy way to convert closed-ended into open-ended questions is to think about the range of possible responses and re-word your questions to allow a free answer.

🔥 Pro tip: when surveying people on your website, ask questions that can help you find out both the what and the why behind your users’ actions. You can accomplish it by combining open- and closed-ended questions as part of the same survey:

• Start from a closed-ended question, which usually costs people little effort to answer

• Continue with a follow-up open-ended question, which gives them an opportunity—should they want to take it—to elaborate on the answer.

An example of closed-ended and open-ended question from one of our blog pages

📚 Read more: here are 20+ real examples of open- and closed-ended questions you can ask on your website.

Use Hotjar to build your survey, place it on your website or send it via email, and get the customer insight you need to grow your business.

Pre-built survey templates

Now that you know how to ask open-ended questions, it’s time to start putting the knowledge into practice.

To survey your website users, use Hotjar's feedback tools to run on-page surveys, collect answers, and visualize results. You can create surveys that run through the entire site, or choose to display them on specific pages (URLs) only:

As per what to ask—if you're getting started, the five open-ended questions below are ideal for ecommerce sites (or any website that can benefit from user research and insight):

1. How can we make this page better

2. Where exactly did you first hear about us?

3. What is stopping you from [action] today?

4. What are your main concerns or questions about [product/service]?

5. What persuaded you to [take action] today?

1. How can we make this page better?

Short and to the point, asking a user how a page can be better leaves the door wide open to a multitude of answers you may not have thought of.

2. Where exactly did you first hear about us?

An open “How did you find out about us?” question leaves users to answer freely, without leading them to a stock response, and gives you valuable information that might be harder to track with traditional analytics tools.

We've pre-built a traffic attribution survey template ready and waiting for you to use. Check it out here.

3. What is stopping you from [action] today?

A “what is stopping you?” question can be shown on exit pages; the open-form answers will help you identify the barriers to conversion that stop people from taking action.

🏆 Pro tip: questions like this one can also be triggered in a post-purchase survey that shows up on a thank you or order confirmation page. This type of survey only focuses on confirmed customers; after asking what almost stopped them, you can address any potential obstacles they highlight and fix them for the rest of your site visitors.

4. What are your main concerns or questions about [product/service]?

Finding out the concerns and objections of customers on your website will help you address them in future versions of the page(s) they’re on. It sounds simple, but you’ll be surprised by how candid and helpful your users will be when answering this one.

Want to gather feedback on your product? Learn what to improve and understand what users really think with our free survey template.

5. What persuaded you to [take action] today?

Learning what made a customer click ‘buy now’ or ‘sign up’ will help you identify your levers. Maybe it’s low prices, fast shipping, or excellent customer service—whatever the reason, finding out what draws customers in and convinces them to stay will allow you to emphasize these benefits to other users and, ultimately, increase conversions.

🏆 Editor's tip: here are 50+ more survey questions to help you craft a better questionnaire for your users.

Why asking open-ended questions to your customers can increase sales

When users take the time to open up to you and give you feedback on the surveys and polls you’ve set up, it’s usually open-ended questions that lead to the most valuable feedback and rich insights.

There is still a time and a place for closed-ended questions (see NPS, for example), but, as Sarah Doody, author of UX Notebook, explained to us when we interviewed her a few months back:

I always have a last question which is just open-ended: “Is there anything else you would like to tell me?” And sometimes those are where you get four paragraphs long of this amazing content that you would never have got if it was just a Net Promoter Score [survey] or something like that.

Open-ended questions are perfect for finding out:

What did customers enjoy about our business?

Spotting your strengths helps you showcase your value to more users, and could lead to further business insight beyond UX. For example, maybe you offer regular coupons to increase sales, but customers don’t mention lower prices as their reason for purchasing—this could prompt you to evaluate future discounting decisions and consider price changes.

What can we improve?

An open platform for your customers to tell you their pain points is far more valuable for improving customer satisfaction than guessing what improvements you should make. Issues could range from technical bugs to lack of product range: you won’t know until you ask.

Where did we fall short?

If you missed the expectations set by a customer, you may have over-promised or under-delivered. Ask users where you missed the mark today, and you’ll know how to properly set, and meet, expectations in the future.

📚 Read more: here’s some expert advice on which product questions to ask when your product isn't selling.

How to ask survey questions to customers

It’s often easy to lead your customers to the answer you want, so make sure you’re following these guidelines:

1. Embrace negative feedback

Some customers may find it too hard to leave negative feedback if your questions are worded poorly.

For example, “We hope there wasn’t anything bad about your experience with us, but if so, please let us know” is better phrased neutrally as “Let us know if there was anything you’d like us to do differently.” It might sting a little to hear negative comments, but it’s your biggest opportunity to really empathize with customers and fuel your UX improvements moving forward.

🏆 Pro tip: we actually think it’s worth encouraging negative feedback from survey respondents! An easy way to do it is by emphasizing the fact that honest answers are crucial to improving a product/service:

2. Don’t lead your customers

“You bought 300 apples over the past year. What's your favorite fruit?” is an example of a leading question. You just planted the idea of an apple in your customers' mind. Valuable survey questions are open and objective; let people answer them in their own words, from their own perspective, and you’ll get more meaningful answers.

3. Avoid asking “and why?”

Tacking “and why?” on at the end of a question will only give you simple answers. And, no, adding “and why?” will not turn closed-ended questions into open-ended ones!

Asking “What did you purchase today, and why?” will give you an answer like “3 pairs of socks for a gift” (and that’s if you’re lucky: many ignore the “and why?” part), whereas wording the question as “Why did you choose to make a purchase today” can allow for an open answer, for example, “I saw your special offer and bought socks for my niece.”

Keep your survey simple

Not many folks love filling in a survey that’s 50 questions long and takes an hour to complete. For the most effective data collection (and decent response rates), you need to keep the respondents’ attention span in mind. Value your customer’s time by keeping your surveys simple, concise, and to-the-point with these 3 tips:

1. Keep question length short

Good questions are one sentence long and worded as concisely as possible.

2. Limit the number of questions

Take your list of planned questions and be ruthless when narrowing them down. Keep the questions that you know will lead to direct insight, and ditch the rest.

3. Show survey progress while completing

A simple progress bar, or an indication of how many questions are left, will help keep users motivated to continue answering your survey.

Open-ended questions vs closed-ended questions in a nutshell

• Open-ended questions let people express their opinions, in their own words

• Closed-ended questions allow limited responses, like ‘yes’ or ‘no’

• Closed-ended questions provide some quantitative data on users (e.g., NPS survey)

• Open-ended questions lead to insightful answers that can help you empathize with users and how they experience your website

• You can turn a closed question into an open-ended one by asking for detail

• Avoid asking leading questions, or appending questions with “and why?”

• Good surveys have a few, short questions and a progress bar

Use Hotjar to build your survey, place it on your website or send it via email, and get the customer insight you need to grow your business.

Pre-built survey templates

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.