Likert scale surveys are a reliable way to collect valuable customer data. Learn how we can use the scale to generate feedback for our business insights.
Likert scale surveys are a reliable way to collect valuable customer data. Learn how we can use the scale to generate feedback for our business insights.
A Likert scale survey is a reliable and versatile way that we can accurately gauge perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors related to our work. These questions offer answer choices that range from strong positive sentiment to strong negative sentiment. The Likert scale also differs from other traditional survey question forms because it includes a neutral (sometimes written as “neither agree nor disagree”) answer option.
The reasons why Likert scale survey questionnaires are so over-represented in consumer satisfaction surveys and employee evaluations is because they allow business owners to gain insight into their recipients thoughts and emotions.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how to design a Likert scale survey question, go over some Likert scale examples, and discuss how we can use point scale surveying methods to improve our business decisions.
Likert scales are used to quantify and compare consumer sentiments on our business propositions. A range of answer options, ranging from enthusiastic agreement to explicit disagreement, allow panelists to share their opinions with us in a qualitative, measurable manner.
“Do you believe Joe Biden is doing a good job as President?”
“How satisfied are you with your recent product purchase?”
“How helpful were our employees throughout your shopping experience?”
Utilizing a Likert scale questionnaire allows us to intimately explore our consumers thoughts and feelings about one particular issue. They are formatted in such a way that they promote the most accurate and considered responses from our consumer audiences; by providing multiple answers to choose from that vary in their level of support for a proposition, our audiences are less likely to feel pressured into siding with one particular “side”.
Likert scale questions are popular because they’re easy to answer, they encourage stronger answers, and they give the audience a chance to let their voices be heard.
One of the biggest advantages of the Likert scale is the existing familiarity your consumers have with the format. Nearly everyone has been asked to fill out a customer satisfaction survey or product review that utilizes the Likert scale. Anyone who has ever worked a job in a corporate setting has likely seen a variety of Likert scale questions used to evaluate employee performance.
Consumers often recognize the Likert scale as a “satisfaction scale”, likely due to their exposure with the surveying method in customer service surveys and end-of-course college evaluations.
The reason why this familiarity is beneficial is because it makes our audiences more willing to put forth the time to answer our survey.
If our pollsters are unfamiliar with our surveying format or believe our questionnaire will take too long to answer, then our surveys are worthless.
Another advantage of odd-numbered (5,7, or even 9-point) is that they allow audiences to answer with a neutral option. Some audiences are not going to have strong feelings about your questions one way or the other; giving them a way out of picking sides is going to improve the accuracy of your results.
Likert scale survey questions give us deeper insight into how our consumers’ purchasing mindsets and brand sentiments. If we can take advantage of the data points we get from surveying our target audiences, we can improve the effectiveness of our marketing strategies.
There are many practical scenarios in which a business might utilize a Likert scale survey to gauge the sentiment of their audiences.
One of the most common places you’ll see Likert scale survey questionnaires are in customer satisfaction surveys. After the point of sale (POS), many businesses will offer customers a chance to review their customer experience by evaluating them with a Likert scale survey. Customers usually access the survey with a link printed on the receipt; if it is a digital purchase, the customer is emailed a link asking them to fill out the survey.
Oftentimes, customers will be incentivized to fill out these surveys through the offering of coupons or raffles. It is important that these surveys are designed with accessibility and clarity in mind, and that they are offered very soon after the POS; the more barriers we place in front of our customer and the survey, their chances of answering the survey drop dramatically.
Another place Likert scale questions are often found are in employee engagement surveys. Businesses often use a Likert scale questionnaire to evaluate the morale of their employees, and to identify any potential areas in the workplace that need improvement.
Likert scale questions can be used to evaluate progress on a deadline, identify inefficiencies in departmental processes, and can help us to prevent losing employees to easily solvable issues. If we listen to our employees, we can identify their concerns earlier on and work to address them before they become problems.
News media and professional polling organizations often use Likert scale surveys to gauge trends in public opinion. On the matters of current events, public policy, and especially in regards to electoral races - Likert scale is an intuitive way of measuring audience sentiment. Many approval polls follow the Likert scale, as they allow voters who are on the fence to signal moderate support to one candidate. They may also choose to abstain from picking a side by choosing a neutral polling answer.
When making the decision to use a Likert scale question, we must pick how many potential answer options - points - we are allowing participants to choose from.
The amount of points that can be featured in an answer set ranges anywhere from a minimum of 3, all the way up to 11 points. Most often marketers will choose either a 5-point Likert scale or a 7-point Likert scale, depending on the kind of survey being conducted. But how do we decide if we should use a Likert scale with 5 points or 7?
Whether we use either a 5-point or 7-point Likert scale, our audiences will have access to five responses: two positive, two negative, and one neutral opinion. With this range, we are able to discern and differentiate consumer sentiment across these five different values; adding an additional two answer options gives us that many more data points.
The 7-point Likert scale wins out over the 5-point Likert scale by a small margin. With more data at our disposal, we can more accurately assess the variances in our consumer’s responses. When we are asking consumers to share their feelings about our brand or our products, it is important that we recognize that emotions are very complex things that can’t be captured entirely by one-sentence sentiments. If we can offer our survey respondents a wider range of options to choose from while keeping those option sets balanced, the data we receive will be of a much higher quality.
Ultimately, the quality of your questions and the clarity of your answer sets will matter more than the amount of points in your Likert scale survey - so don’t sweat it too much!
The best and most affordable way business owners can generate quality, reliable consumer feedback is through conducting consumer response surveys. A simple survey could be all that stands between your company and the renewed success of it’s online marketing efforts.
With Helpfull’s open-ended survey design, users can design visually-striking, multi-question surveys for any occasion!
Helpfull’s community of panelists are ready and waiting to give you concise, constructive feedback on any topic: branding, art, product development, photography, interior design, travel advice - even advice on how you should dye your hair. The feedback that Helpfull generates is displayed in clear, visually distinguishable comments right there on the survey launch page. Whether you’re choosing from either pre-formatted question templates or designing the survey from scratch, you’re only a few button presses away from getting hundreds of unique responses from real consumer panelists.
The responses gathered by Helpfull surveys display in real time, allowing you to instantly incorporate the feedback you receive into your designs.
An intuitive user-interface, coupled with the ability to gather hundreds of consumer responses in just minutes, are just a few of the features that make Helpfull the ultimate tool for any artist, designer, marketer, or inquisitive spirit.
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