Make the survey action-oriented. Surveys are often full of thermometer questions. Responses may suggest the existence of a problem, but provide too little information for you to understand the problem or recommend changes. If, instead, you ask about the accuracy of the order, the quality of the food, and the courteousness of the staff, you can use the responses you receive to plan a course of action. Use both open-ended and closed questions.
Closed questions ask respondents to select from a set of fixed responses.
Respondents can answer these questions quickly, and responses can be tabulated, summarized, graphed, charted, analyzed and reported. Open-ended questions, by contrast, ask respondents to answer in their own words. Responses take time to review and are subject to interpretation. However, open-ended questions frequently provide a level of insight into the customer perspective that is impossible to obtain from closed questions. When organizations ask me to evaluate their surveys, I often recommend the use of more open-ended questions.