Open-ended survey questions: definition, examples and tips

Open-ended survey questions can give you incredible insights about your customers, employees, and market—but only if you know how to write and analyze them effectively. And even for the most experienced market researchers, that isn’t always easy.

Many researchers struggle with formulating open-ended questions that actually generate useful responses (and enough of them!).

Too often, these questions result in vague answers like “It’s fine” or lengthy responses that are difficult to analyze at scale. Or, people simply don’t feel like answering them at all. So the challenge isn’t just asking the right questions—it’s knowing when to use them, how to phrase them, and then also what to do with the qualitative data you collect.

In this guide, you’ll learn the art of open-ended questions: how to write better open-ended survey questions, when to use them instead of closed-ended alternatives, and practical methods for analyzing the responses you receive. If you’re looking for meaningful answers and more context from your potential customers, consider this article your launching pad!

What are open-ended questions?

Open questions are those that allow respondents to answer in their own words, in a free form answer, without being limited to predefined response options, aka multiple choice questions. Open ended ones give participants complete freedom to express their thoughts, feelings, and opinions in whatever detail they choose. You’ll often get longer answers, more like having a conversation, but since it’s in the format of a survey, it remains easy to digest and analyze.

Open-ended vs close-ended questions: how are they different?

Unlike multiple-choice or rating scale questions, open-ended questions don’t provide answer choices. Instead, they typically include a text box where respondents can type their response. But that’s not the only difference. Here are the differences, beyond the obvious formatting. You’ll see the way close-ended questions are formatted, and what their open-ended ”counterpart” could look like.

Close-Ended Questions	Open-Ended Equivalents
How satisfied are you with our product? (Very satisfied/Satisfied/Neutral/Dissatisfied/Very dissatisfied)	What has your experience been like using our product?
Which brand do you prefer? (Brand A/Brand B/Brand C/Other)	When shopping for [product category], which brands come to mind and why?
Would you recommend our service to others? (Yes/No)	What would you tell a friend who was considering our service?
How would you rate our customer support? (1-10 scale)	Please describe your recent customer support experience.
Which feature is most important to you? (Feature A/Feature B/Feature C/Feature D)	What features matter most to you when choosing this type of product?
How often do you use our app? (Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Rarely/Never)	Tell us about how and when you typically use our app.
What is your primary reason for choosing us? (Price/Quality/Convenience/Brand reputation)	What led you to choose our company over other options?
Are you likely to purchase again? (Very likely/Likely/Unlikely/Very unlikely)	What factors will influence whether you buy from us again?

Both being different, means they also both have different pros and cons. Here is how each format can benefit you, or be a disadvantage to your research.

Open-Ended Questions

Advantages	Disadvantages
Uncover unexpected insights you wouldn’t have thought to ask about	Time-consuming for respondents to answer thoughtfully
Get detailed context behind customer behaviors and preferences	Complex analysis requiring manual coding or specialized tools
Avoid response bias from limiting answer choices	Lower response rates due to increased effort required
Capture authentic voice and language your customers actually use	Inconsistent data quality with some responses being vague or off-topic
Generate ideas for future products, services, or research directions	Difficult to compare responses statistically

Close-Ended Questions

Advantages	Disadvantages
Quick and easy for respondents to answer	Limited insights constrained by predefined options
Simple analysis with clear statistical comparisons	Potential bias from the answer choices you provide
Higher response rates due to minimal effort required	Miss unexpected factors that influence customer behavior
Standardized data that’s easy to benchmark over time	Lack context for understanding the reasoning behind responses
Perfect for measuring trends and statistical significance	May force responses that don’t reflect true opinions

When to use open vs close -ended questions

Use open-ended questions when you want to:

Here are some key examples of when you can use open-ended questions. 

Explore unknown territory

• Discovering what customers think about your brand without prompting specific attributes
• Understanding unprompted brand awareness: “Thinking about [category], what brands come to mind?”
• Exploring new market opportunities or unmet customer needs

Understand the “why” behind behaviors

• Following up rating questions: “You rated our customer service as poor. What happened during your last interaction?”
• Exploring decision-making processes: “What factors influenced your choice to switch to our competitor?”

Generate ideas and insights

• New product development: “If you could design the perfect [product category], what features would it have?”
• Content creation: “What questions do you have about [topic] that we haven’t addressed?”

Capture authentic customer language

• Understanding how customers describe your products for marketing copy
• Learning the terminology and pain points your audience actually uses

Use close-ended questions when you want to:

Measure and compare

• Tracking satisfaction scores over time
• Comparing different customer segments or products
• Measuring Net Promoter Score (NPS) or other standardized metrics

Make quick decisions

• A/B testing creative concepts with clear preferences
• Screening respondents based on specific criteria
• Gathering demographic information for segmentation

Reduce respondent burden

• Long surveys that need to remain engaging
• Mobile surveys where typing is more difficult
• Research with time-sensitive participants

Best practice: Combine both question types

The most effective surveys often combine open-ended and close-ended questions strategically:

1. Start with closed-ended questions to qualify respondents and ease them into the survey
2. Follow ratings with open-ended follow-ups to understand the reasoning
3. Use open-ended questions for exploration, then validate findings with closed-ended questions in future research
4. End with open-ended questions to capture anything you might have missed

Example combination:

• Close-ended: “How likely are you to recommend our product? (0-10 scale)”
• Open-ended follow-up: “What’s the main reason for your score?”

56 open-ended survey question examples

The type of open-ended questions you’ll ask depends heavily on your research objectives. Use these examples as inspiration, adapting the wording to fit your specific context and brand voice.

Branding survey questions

These questions help you understand brand perception and awareness without leading respondents toward specific attributes:

• Thinking about [category], what brands, if any, are you aware of? Please type in all the brands that you can think of.
• How would you describe [brand] to a friend?
• When you think of [brand], what words or phrases come to mind?
• If you had to describe [brand] in three words, what would they be?
• What initially attracted you to [brand]?
• What was your initial reaction to [brand]?
• How have your feelings towards [brand] changed over time?
• How did you become aware of [brand] and the products/services they offer?
• Who do you think [brand] is made for?
• Complete the following sentence: I think [brand] is…
• In the past year, what have you heard about [brand]?

Customer feedback survey questions

Use these questions to gather detailed insights about customer experience and satisfaction:

• Please describe your last encounter with [brand]’s customer service department.
• How can [brand] provide a better service to you?
• Why do you buy from [brand]?
• How does buying/using [brand] make you feel?
• What elements do you consider when shopping for [product category]?
• What did you like best about your experience with [brand]?
• What did you like least about your experience with [brand]?
• What is your favorite feature of [product]?
• What surprised you about using [product]?
• What annoys you about [product]?
• What problem does [product] solve for you?
• How well does [brand] product solve your problem?
• What were the main struggles you had when using [product]?
• If you could change one thing about [product], what would it be?
• What additional features would you like to see on [product]?
• In which situations do you commonly use [brand] products?
• Describe your purchasing process for [product].

Pricing survey questions

These questions help you understand price sensitivity and value perception:

• How much would you expect [product] to cost?
• What factors do you keep in mind when deciding how much you’d pay for [product]?

Market analysis survey questions

Use these questions to understand competitive positioning and market dynamics:

• What brands, if any, are you aware of in this product category? Please type in all the brands you can think of.
• What other brands have you considered?
• What would you say is the most significant difference between [brand] and [competitor brand]?
• Where did you look before coming to [brand]?
• Why did you choose [brand] products rather than a competitor’s?
• What does [brand] do better than other companies in this field?
• What product would you use as an alternative if [brand] was no longer available?
• What’s your overall opinion of [brand]?
• Is there anything else you’d like to share with us about [brand]?

Customer profiling survey questions

These questions help you build detailed customer personas and understand user journeys:

• What other products did you try before using our product?
• What makes you feel valued as a customer?
• What websites and sources do you use to find new [category] products?
• What do you find the most difficult when shopping for this type of product?
• Where exactly did you first hear about [brand]?
• What type of content do you like to consume revolving [product]?
• What types of channels do you use when shopping for products?

New product development and concept testing survey questions

Use these questions to gather insights for product innovation and improvement:

• Please describe your ideal product for this category.
• If you could change just one thing about [specific product], what would it be?
• What is your least favorite aspect of [product feature]?
• Why don’t you like that [product feature]?
• If you could add anything you wanted to this product, what would it be?
• Why would you add this?
• If you could get rid of anything in this product, what would it be?
• Why would you get rid of that?

💡Pro tip: Open-ended questions are powerful — but only if they’re asked the right way. Check out our guide to writing better survey questions to learn how to phrase them clearly, avoid bias, and get more honest, useful responses.

Best practices for asking open-ended questions

Asking open-ended questions sounds easy: just let the survey respondents do the talking, right?

Wrong. Asking open-ended questions is more complicated than it sounds, because you’re relying on your respondents to give you meaningful open-text answers. It’s therefore SUPER IMPORTANT that you structure your market research well so that you give respondents the best chance of understanding what you’re asking and that you carry out genuinely useful qualitative research. Follow these best practices to improve response quality and analysis efficiency.

1. Keep the structure of your survey in mind

We recommend not kicking your survey off with an open-ended question. Normally it helps to start with some closed ended questions to qualify your survey respondents and as a way to ease your respondents into the context of your survey, before you ask those open-ended questions.

2. Ask only the essential open-ended questions

When you are designing a survey, it is important to only ask for information that you will actually use. Open-ended questions can be helpful for getting detailed feedback, but they can also be more difficult to analyze because you don’t end up with the more typical quantitative data you can more easily gather through close-ended questions.

Also keep in mind that for respondents, answering open-ended questions takes a lot more time and effort than selecting from predefined lists. Make sure you are not exploiting their willingness to answer your survey, and keep answers of high quality by limiting the amount of open-ended questions you are asking. Nobody started your survey because they wanted to write an essay!

3. Ask one question at a time

We’re often inclined to cover multiple subjects in one sentence, but this can blur your answers and confuse respondents. Don’t ask who their favorite actor is and why in one question, but split questions up as much as you can. This will make it a lot easier to analyze the results in the end, and you will make sure every single question gets fully answered.

4. Be specific

When asking an open-ended question you’ll want to be super-specific.

Asking someone what they like about your product can give you a full range of answers that might be hard to categorize and analyze. Instead, split it up in smaller pieces. So instead of

What do you like about our product?

Ask questions such as:

• What do you think about the design of our product?
• What do you think about the usability of our product?
• What do you think about the durability of our product?

If you need these questions answered with detail and therefore choose open-ended questions, you will at least be able to categorize the answers.

5. Avoid leading questions

Leading, your honor!

Leading questions push respondents in a certain direction. They already contain information that you are either trying to confirm or deny. This means you won’t get a true unbiased answer from most respondents.

Here are some examples of open-ended questions that are leading, so don’t use these!

• How much did you enjoy our last event?
• Most people hate having to drive to the cinema for more than half an hour. What about you?
• What did you find most user-friendly in our new app?

The risk with leading questions isn’t just that you get answers that don’t add any value, it’s also a slippery slope towards getting a single word answer. Formulate your question in such a way (and test it on yourself and others if in doubt) to see what the instinctive response is.

6. Avoid closed-ended questions in disguise

Closed-ended questions can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” and do not provide respondents with an opportunity to speak up. But sometimes we ask closed ended questions, thinking they’re open-ended. But unfortunately, having a text field ready for respondents, doesn’t necessarily mean your question is open-ended. For instance:

• Were you happy with our latest product update?

Sure, a respondent might be able to say no and expand on that, but it would be better to ask a closed-ended question using the Likert scale and follow it up with an open-ended question for added context:

• Thinking about [brand]’s latest product update, which of the following statements applies to you?
  • I loved it
  • I quite liked it
  • I neither liked or disliked it
  • I didn’t like it
  • I hated it
• What made you feel this way?

[open-text response]

How to increase your survey response rate

Getting high-quality responses to open-ended questions starts with encouraging participation in your survey. Use these strategies to improve response rates and data quality.

Keep surveys short and focused

Longer surveys have dramatically lower completion rates. Aim for surveys that take 5-7 minutes maximum to complete, including time for thoughtful open-ended responses.

Make questions easy to answer

Even within open-ended formats, you can reduce the effort required:

• Use conversational language rather than formal or technical terms
• Ask about recent experiences that are fresh in respondents’ minds
• Provide examples when helpful (without leading the response)

Offer appropriate incentives

Consider providing incentives that match your audience and survey length. This could include:

• Gift cards or cash incentives for longer research studies
• Access to survey results or industry insights
• Entry into prize drawings for shorter surveys

How to analyze the results of open-ended questions

The real value of open-ended questions emerges during analysis. Here’s a systematic approach to extracting insights from qualitative responses.

Step 1: Group responses by themes or topics (thematic analysis)

Start by reading through all responses to get a sense of the overall patterns. Then group similar responses into themes:

Example themes for “What do you like least about our product?”:

• User interface/design issues
• Performance/speed problems
• Missing features
• Customer support experiences
• Pricing concerns

Use spreadsheets or qualitative analysis software to organize responses into these categories.

Step 2: Tag or categorize responses to quantify themes

Once you’ve identified themes, tag each response with relevant categories. This allows you to:

• Count how frequently each theme appears
• Identify the most common issues or preferences
• Compare themes across different customer segments

Example tagging:

• Response: “The app is slow and crashes frequently”
• Tags: Performance, Reliability, Mobile app

Step 3: Summarize insights with supporting quotes or examples

Create a summary that includes:

• Quantified themes: “32% of responses mentioned performance issues”
• Representative quotes: Direct quotes that illustrate each theme
• Actionable insights: Specific recommendations based on the feedback

Tools that can help:

• Attest’s built-in text analysis features for automatic theme detection
• Excel or Google Sheets for manual coding and counting
• Specialized qualitative analysis software like NVivo or Atlas.ti for complex studies