6 keys to killer market research questions

Companies that use these tactics to write customer surveys will go beyond surface-level feedback and uncover actionable insights.

Adam Berinsky is is the Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT and serves as the director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL).

The first time people sit down to write a market research survey, they tend to ask broad questions about customer satisfaction. But these sorts of questions aren’t likely to tell you much — even about whether customers are truly satisfied.

Think of the last time you reflexively gave an Uber ride or an Airbnb stay a five-star rating. Was it truly a premium experience?

Writing effective survey questions is both an art and a science, and professionals spend decades fine-tuning their skills without ever perfecting them. But some basic best practices can help marketers dramatically improve their ability to collect meaningful customer data.

  1. Step into your customer’s shoes: Too often, marketers use the language of their product teams, rather than simple language that customers can relate with. For instance, they might ask about “product integration capabilities,” rather than “how well this works with your other devices.” Think about why your customers are buying your company’s products in the first place. What pain point did they have that caused them to start buying from you? Ask about these concerns — not about technical specifications and obscure features that customers have probably never even considered.
  2. Keep your thumb off the scale: As researchers, we can easily sway our respondents to select a certain answer, even unintentionally. For instance, imagine customers are answering a question about how many hours they spend on social media each week, and we give them these options: a) 1-2; b) 3-4; c) 4-5; and d) 6+. They will probably get the not-so-subtle message that it’s unacceptable to spend more than five hours a week on Facebook and Instagram, and they will likely pick options ‘b’ or ‘c’ out of unconscious social pressure. But if we instead give them options with much higher ranges, chances are that they will provide very different data. Be very careful about the way you ask questions, as it will often influence the way your customers answer them.
  3. Ask about problems, not solutions: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Henry Ford never actually uttered this quote, but there’s a reason it has been passed around for decades. It’s a vivid illustration of what marketers and executives so often feel — that customers don’t really know what they want. We can debate endlessly about how true this is. What’s less debatable is the fact customers know exactly what they don’t want. By asking about their most pressing problems, companies can position themselves to solve them.
  4. Converse, don’t interrogate: Really, market research surveys are just conversations between companies and their customers. But, unlike face-to-face conversations, surveys only give you one chance to ask the customer a question. Often, people will be tempted to answer questions in a way that reflects their aspirations, rather than their actual behavior. For instance, a patient in a doctor’s office might say he has two drinks a night when he really has four, or a credit card customer might say she pays her balance each month when she has actually carried a balance for the past 90 days. It can be surprisingly helpful to include accommodating language in a survey question. For example: “In the current economy, many people find themselves in consumer debt…”
  5. Force trade-offs: If you ask your customers whether they want a product or service to be better, faster or cheaper, they will typically respond: “Yes, all of them”. To get at what they really value, though, you’ll need to ask customers to consider concrete hypothetical trade-offs. For instance, a phone maker might ask customers whether they would prefer a model with exceptional battery life but a basic camera, or one with a pro-level camera that requires frequent charging. These either/or scenarios force customers to think realistically about their priorities, revealing preferences they might not even know they have.
  6. Test before you invest: Even if you apply all of these tips, you might still find that customers are misinterpreting the wording of a couple of questions, or that a survey is yielding implausible data. It’s important to come to these realizations before depleting your marketing budget with a full marketing research study. Digital tools make it easier than ever to test out survey questions on a small sample of respondents. Companies can also validate the results of their surveys through A/B testing. If a survey suggests that customers care more about durability than price, you can run two versions of an online ad to see whether real-world behavior matches the data.

As digital tools democratize market research, companies have unprecedented opportunities to understand their customers. But these tools alone won’t generate meaningful insights. Marketers who take time to write and test effective questions are the ones who will learn what their customers truly value.

 

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