Survey fatigue isn’t a new phrase if you’re working in market research and often launch a customer satisfaction survey. Poor remunerations throw your respondents off who like to make easy money online in India. Long surveys and forms with more subjective questions are also the top reasons users abandon studies midway.

So, this post is to inform you how long your surveys should be to avoid survey fatigue in respondents. And what page lengths or section lengths make is a good deal breaker with the audience.

How Many Questions Should Your Survey Have?

There is no right or wrong answer to this tricky market research question. But before knowing how long your survey should be with the number of questions, you should know the why behind the how.

Why Do Number of Questions Matter, Anyway?

You might want to get a holistic user perspective about your product in one survey. But do remember that the rate of a survey completion depends on its length. Too lengthy a survey, and your users will go awry. Too short, and it wouldn’t capture much of your customers’ opinions unless the agenda of the survey is NPS or something similar.

If you set the monetary benefits aside, the time your online survey form requires decides the engagement level of your respondents. Also, their patience might wear out when a form takes longer than the expected time.

However, some surveys may take longer, even with limited questions. A video survey is an example where the time spent on your form increases with the number and length of videos.

Hence, knowing the average amount of time your audience like to spend is a good benchmark for different survey types.

Pro tip: Add the expected time needed to fill a survey in the email or the app notification to set a user’s expectation right.

What is an Ideal Length for a Survey?

First of all, a survey is designed to fetch feedback from users, and an incomplete survey makes no sense. Such surveys might result in skewed data. So, write a list of questions that cover the topics related to your agenda.

For instance, if you’re looking for feedback from new users, asking them what they like, what they don’t, and what improvements they suggest is great. Your survey can be limited to 5-8 questions in such a scenario. Such surveys are apt for collecting quantitative feedback that brings the percentage of likes and dislikes, percentage of data based on demographics, etc., to the fore.

When you’re asking your users to rate your brand or a particular product, you’re running a micro survey. 1-2 questions might be fine.

If your survey seeks in-depth feedback about an existing product, you would need to be a little more articulate to add multiple choice-based questions. The time you demand in this scenario from your users is usually more than a short survey. Your list of questions can be as long as 30 in numbers, and the time often needed is between 8 and 10 minutes. But be mindful that fewer candidates take long surveys unless the motivation is quite a hook.

For collecting qualitative inputs, you pop more open-ended questions that need your users to think and write. Writing is a time-taking exercise than selecting an option from a list of radio buttons. Hence, such surveys run longer.

Surveying the churned customers is one of the best ways to know where your product or service is lacking. Hence, a good opportunity to collect opinions through open-ended questions. But why would the churned customers care about a brand they have severed ties with? So, balance the length with a mix of questions for short and long answers.

A customer satisfaction survey is usually 15-20 questions long that finishes in maximum 5 minutes.

When You Run a Long Survey

Long surveys mean more minutes to submit and more abandonment. Hence, we suggest you divide your survey into pages (or sections). 2 benefits come with this. As a user clicks on “next”, their inputs get saved periodically. Dividing it into pages or sections makes your study swifter, and users can avoid survey fatigue.

Dividing into sections is all about the topic you’re covering. You can divide into a set of 5 questions if they are all related. Otherwise, bifurcate them into sections based on how they relate. Say you’re surveying about high-end residential furnishing products. You can divide the questions based on the rooms you provide for.

Pro tip: Learn what kind of questions a brand should ask in market research.

Struggling to Design a Good Survey?

Designing surveys is complex and needs a lot of brain-tinkering about the types and numbers of questions. But why worry and invest your time in a task that’s not your expertise? Hiring an online panel research vendor allows you to put your time where it’s needed.

Opinionest, one of the best panels that runs online surveys for money in India, has worked in multiple industries for years. Reach out to the Opinionest team for assistance in designing and launching a survey with the right number of questions and content.