Online surveys are one of the fastest, most efficient and cost-effective ways to conduct valuable market research. A good survey will provide you with high-quality, actionable feedback about your target audience, potential customer and clients, as well as their opinion on your products and services.
With online surveys, gathering relevant data is all bout asking the right questions – and the right type of survey question makes all the difference. Ranking questions are one of the popular choices in online surveys, alongside similar question types like multiple-choice, rating questions, scale questions etc.
So let’s look into ranking questions, some of their examples, as well as some of the alternative survey ideas and questions that could come in handy.
What are ranking questions?
A ranking question is a type of survey question that allows respondents to rank answer choices by order of preference. WIth ranking questions, you can learn both what your customers or clients want and how exactly they feel about your business, product, and services.
Examples of survey ranking questions
What are some examples of ranking survey questions?
Need some ideas to get things going for your online survey? Here are some ranking questions examples.
1. Ranking questions for market research surveys
Rank your priorities when you consider buying this type of product?
- Quality
- Size of the package
- Packaging
- Pricing
- Delivery options
- Return options
- Ecological sustainability
- Company’s values
What are the problems you’re looking to solve with this product? (let’s imagine this product is a face moisturizer)
- Skin dryness
- Signs of aging
- Acne
- Skin sensitivity
- Sun damage
What would be the reasons for switching from product you’re currently using?
- Changes in pricing
- Slow delivery
- Lack of availability
- Change in product ingredients
- Bad customer experience
What features do you like best from our competitors?
- Price
- Availability
- Fast delivery
- Ingredients
- Customer support
- Company values
2. Ranking questions for employee satisfatcion surveys
Which benefits at our company are the most valuable to you, in order of importance?
- Additional vacation days
- Flexible health insurance
- Flexible working hours
- Remote work options
In terms of day-to-day workflow, what are your priorities?
- Good cooperation within the team
- Independence in decision-making
- Realistic expectations from the managers
- Realistic deadlines for projects
- Optimal number of projects
- Do you need to trim your tool stack? Use this ranking survey question to understand which tools employees value most.
In terms of personal development, what are your priorities at this company?
- Opportunities for professional growth
- Advance to higher positions
- Opportunities for higher salary
- Challenging projects
3. Ranking questions for customer satisfaction surveys
Which product features do you find the most useful?
- Quiz maker
- Survey maker
- Online form maker
- Data analysis
- Integrations
What do you prioritize when it comes to customer support?
- Informative FAQ materials and Help section
- Fast response time to inquiries
- Ability to get in touch with representative within 24 hours or less
Rank items based on what you prioritize in a good online courses?
- Topics
- Lesson structure
- Textbook materials
- Video materials
- Exams
- One-on-one lessons
- Group lessons
- Open consultations with the teacher
Why you should use rank order survey questions
Simplicity of use
Ranking questions come with simple instructions, a little bit of challenge for respondents, and yet they can provide you with deeply insightful information about your business or product.
Highly interactive
As we said, ranking options comes with a bit of challenge, which means that respondents don’t just tick off a single answer – it takes a little bit of extra work to prioritize among a list of items. That’s what makes ranking questions extra interactive and boosts your survey’s response rate.
Valuable data
Ranking questions offer added insight into your customers or employees’ opinions and attitudes, because ranking allows you to add nuance with survey respondents being able to prioritize and rank different options. These survey questions are also great help with segmentation of your target audience and customers, based on level of their interest and priorities.
Why you should be careful when using ranking survey questions
Requires extra effort
What works well for ranking questions can ultimately be their pitfall. These questions do require more time and thought to answer – and if there’s too many of them, your response rate may drop off. This is why it’s better to combine several question types in your surveys.
Requires familiarity
When you ask survey respondents to rank items on a list, you have to be sure they understand what each of these items represent, so the answers can be accurate and unbiased. In general, ranking questions are better for validation of existing assumptions, rather than discovering brand new things about your target audience.
How do I make my online survey better?
So how do you make sure your online survey is working for you and not against you? Here are a few ground rules:
- Have a clear goal – determine what is goal of your online survey – is it market research, customer satisfaction survey, or internal survey within the company? Stick to the rule – one goal per survey.
- Ask the right survey question types – with online surveys, less is more. Your survey should remain simple and easy to complete so you can easily gather data and turn it into actionable insights. Stick to the recipe of majority of single-choice close-ended questions, with no more than 2-3 open ended questions.
- Keep it short – in our experience, the surveys with the highest response rate have no more than 8-10 questions. Also, questions should be short and straightforward – no more than two lines of text.
Ranking questions vs. rating scale questions
Although similar, ranking questions should not be confused with rating scale questions. While rank order questions require respondents to rank multiple answers, rating scale questions require survey takers to rate their attitude towards a single thing with a single answer.
For example, this is a typical rating scale question:
How satisfied are you with our customer service?
1 – Very dissatisfied
2 – Somewhat dissatisfied
3 – Slightly dissatisfied
4 – Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
5 – Slightly satisfied
6 – Somewhat satisfied
7 – Very satisfied
Rating scale survey questions usually use Likert scale, which most commonly offers between 5 and 7 answer options, ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative attitude.
7 Other Survey Question Types You Can Use
Apart from ranking questions, here are other survey question types you can use:
- Closed-ended questions – these are the most popular option in surveys, consisting of two or more predefined answers. WIth close-ended questions, respondents can choose a single answer or multiple answers.
Some of the subcategories include:
- Dichotomous (‘Yes/No’) questions – respondents answering with a simple yes-no question.
- Multiple-choice questions – respondents choosing multiple answers.
- Checkbox questions – respondent ticking off a single or multiple answers in a checkbox.
- Rating scale survey questions – respondent is assigning an offered value ranging from 1 to 100 to an issue or a statement. As we mentioned before, the most popular option are Likert scale questions, which allow survey takers to choose a single answer based on their attitude.
- Open-ended questions – no predefined answers, respondents are free to answer the question in their own words. It is a great source of qualitative data, but should be used sparingly – no more than 2-3 such questions per survey.
How to make a survey
Creating a great online survey doesn’t have to take hours and days – all you need is a reliable survey tool which incorporates drag-and-drop interface, seamless survey design and analytics tool. You can find all of that using LeadQuizzes! It offers options to create quizzes, surveys and questionnaires from scratch, or you can opt for fully customizable pre-made survey templates including:
- Demographic Survey (looking for specific question examples? Check out these 100 sample demographic questions)
- Market Research Survey
- Net Promoter Survey
- Customer Satisfaction Survey
- Employee Satisfaction Surveys
- Product Feedback Surveys
- Website Feedback Survey
- Brand Awareness Survey
- Post-Event Follow-up Survey (check out these 21 post-event survey questions)
- Likert Scale Survey
You can quickly adapt these surveys to fit your needs, embed them on your website or add them to a pop-up window. With Facebook Pixel integration you can also easily track your survey’s performance on social media, and you can also track it with Google Analytics.
Conclusion
What’s amazing about LeadQuizzes is that it can double down as a quiz maker – allowing you not only to learn more about your audience, but also to connect and stay in touch with them. We’ve helped our users collect over 4.7M emails and gather 73.9M answers using surveys and quizzes, so why not give it a shot? All you need to do is sign-up for a free 14-day trial – plenty of time to try out something new that could help you redefine your entire marketing strategy!
