Our MD, Fiona Norman, shares her thoughts on questionnaire design.
I have to admit, I can’t complete a customer survey like a normal person. I genuinely do try. But after more than 35 years working in market research and consumer insight, my brain won’t let me.
The other day, I was asked a question that everyone has seen hundreds of times.
“How satisfied are you with our service?”
Before I’d even thought about my answer, I found myself thinking something completely different. Is that really what this organisation needs to know?
Don’t get me wrong. Satisfaction scores have their place. They help organisations monitor performance over time and they’re very useful for reporting against KPIs. But if customers are leaving, is satisfaction really the question that matters most?
What if the better question was this?
“What made you choose a competitor instead?”
Suddenly, the conversation changes. The first question gives you a number but the second gives you something much more valuable. It tells you where to improve.
That difference might seem small, but after decades working with organisations across Northern Ireland and beyond, I’ve learned that the success of a research project is often determined before a single survey response is collected.
It starts with asking the right question.
The Biggest Mistake Most Customer Surveys Make
One of the biggest misconceptions about market research is that writing questionnaires is easy.
In reality, it’s acually where the most important thinking happens. Clients often come to us asking for a customer satisfaction survey. By the end of our discovery session, we’re sometimes designing something completely different. Not because the original idea was wrong, but because we’ve uncovered the real business challenge which may not be satisfaction or awareness, it may be more about loyalty or understanding, or maybe its not about pricing levels but actually about trust in the brand.
If you ask the wrong question, you’ll collect plenty of data. You just won’t collect the answers that help you make better decisions.
The Question Behind The Question
One of the first things we do at FN Research is spend time understanding what a client is trying to achieve.
- What decision are they trying to make?
- What is keeping them awake at night?
- What would success actually look like?
Those conversations shape everything that follows. Every survey question has to have a purpose. Every interview topic has a reason for being there and every research project is designed to help organisations move forward with confidence.
That is why our discovery sessions are such an important part of the process. They’re not really about writing questionnaires, they are focused on solving business problems.
Real-Life Experience, How We Design Research That Solves Business Problems
Over the years, we’ve worked with organisations that believed they had one problem when the research revealed something completely different.
One client wanted to measure customer satisfaction because sales had slowed. After exploring the challenge together, we realised the more important question was why existing customers weren’t recommending the business to others.
The research uncovered barriers that had nothing to do with satisfaction. Instead, it identified confusion around the company’s offer and uncertainty about what made it different from competitors.That insight completely changed where the business invested its marketing budget. The research didn’t only produce statistics, it actually changed a business decision.
Better Questions Deliver Better Insight
Good research isn’t about asking more questions. It’s making sure you ask better ones. Sometimes changing a single question can completely alter the quality of the insight you receive.
That’s why we never rush the planning stage. Because the quality of the insight is only ever as good as the question behind it.
The Question Every Business Should Ask
If you’re planning customer research, here’s one question worth asking yourself before you write the survey.
Am I collecting data?
Or am I collecting information that will help me make a decision?
There’s a big difference.
At FN Research, we’ve spent more than 15 years helping organisations across Northern Ireland ask better questions, understand customers more deeply and make decisions based on evidence rather than assumptions.Once you ask the right question, the right answers usually follow.