Options for minimizing customer mistakes

If you have many customers choosing the wrong end of your survey choices, it might be time to update your survey theme. While no survey will be error-proof, certain options can help reduce mistake by your respondents. Remember, if someone does make a mistake, you can easily resend them their unique survey link, so they can correct their error. Here's how.

To reduce mistakes, let's look at your options.

1. If your survey choices use phrases only, check to see if both ends of the scale start with the same words. For example, some of our earlier 5-phrase surveys used the phrases "Very Satisfied" and "Very Unsatisfied", and "Very Likely" and "Very Unlikely". Customers reading too quickly might confuse one "Very" choice for the other. A simple solution to reduce customer mistakes is to ask us to update the wording of the most negative choices to "Not at all satisfied" and "Not at all likely". Customers moving too quickly, while they still may make a mistake, would be less likely to pick a choice that starts with "Not" if they in fact are happy.

2. Consider adding emojis, emoticons or graphics to your choices to aid respondents in quickly identifying the ends of the scales. Take a look at the variety of scale options you have. Don't see the graphics you want, just let us know. Using emoticons may help customers quickly understand which end is positive, and which is negative.

3. Consider using the numerical scale from zero to 10, called the 11-point scale. This can be combined with emoticons or emojis, like a thumbs up or thumbs down as shown below and here. This scale is the traditional NPS® scale, and runs from 0 to 10, and that zero choice is key to reducing mistakes. Most people do not associate zero (0) as a good thing. That is not the case if your choices were to start with the number 1. Some customers may still confuse the number one as good, as in "first place" (1st place) and being a number one (e.g. "We're #1"). When using a number scale, it can be helpful to add a parenthetical helper phrase to the end of the question. For example, if the scale is the 11-point scale we might add "(0=not at all, 10=very likely)" to the question's end.

4. If you use the 5-star scale, while it may be hard to believe, some people confuse 1-star as being the "best" or highest score. If you see your customers making mistakes, consider adding emoticons with the stars, or add emojis on the ends (frown and smile, or thumbs up/down) to aid the respondent.

5. If you see mistakes, our suggestion is to make the slightest changes first. Use the "Not" phrase variant for the most negative choice, add emoticons or emoji scale ends, or simply add a scale helper phrase to the question.

In most instances, customer mistakes represent a small percentage of respondents. But it is still good to know your options. These options are also helpful if you're looking to refresh or update the appearance of your survey, as discussed on our previous blog post this month.