How do you choose an attitude scale for your satisfaction questionnaire?

Which satisfaction scale should be used in an online questionnaire?

Appvizer presents the prerequisites for a successful customer satisfaction survey or in-house survey.

Discover each attitude scale illustrated by a sample question, as well as online services that meet quality criteria for recording your questionnaire, distributing it and analyzing the results.

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The different models of satisfaction scales

The aim of using a satisfaction scale in a questionnaire is to define a measurement scale to assess customer or employee satisfaction.

The respondent checks off a single obligatory answer. This is referred to as an attitude scale: answers can be proposed under different rating scales.

Let's take a look at the different models commonly used to conduct satisfaction surveys.

Likert scale

The Likert scale is the most widely used attitude scale for setting up a satisfaction barometer. The answers to a question are presented in text form, and are very simple to understand.

The proposed answers give respondents the opportunity to express their degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, or to agree or disagree with a statement.

You can vary the range of possible answers, and therefore of feelings, by extending the number of possible answers from 3 to 10, for example.

Example of a 5-point likert scale
Question asked in the form of a statement: Your product meets your expectations.

Suggested answers (only one box can be ticked).
😄 Totally agree
😊 Agree
😶 Neither agree nor disagree
😕 Disagree
🙁 Strongly disagree

Example of a job satisfaction scale
Question asked: Are you satisfied with your workspace?

Suggested answers (only one box can be ticked).
😄 Very satisfied
😊 Satisfied
😶 Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
😕 Not very satisfied
🙁 Not at all satisfied

The 1 to 5 rating scale

In a customer satisfaction survey, it's sometimes difficult or tricky to find a qualifier to evaluate a product or service.

It is therefore easier to use a rating system to provide the respondent with a scale of values in the questionnaire.

Example of an evaluation scale from 1 to 5
Question asked: On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you?
(note 1 expresses a very low level of satisfaction, note 5 reflects a high level of satisfaction)

Suggested ratings (only one radio button can be checked) .

Questionnaire with a scale from 1 to 10

For a variety of reasons, the interviewer may wish to use a larger scale of measurement: for a particular sample, to apply a specific quality survey method, etc. In this case, he or she may use a scale of 1 to 10.

In this case, a scale from 1 to 10 can be used to enable the respondent to give a more precise assessment, while allowing a wider range of ratings.

Example of a 1 to 10 scale
Question asked: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your experience in our store? (a mark of 1 indicates a very bad experience, a mark of 10 an exceptional experience).

Suggested ratings (mandatory: only one radio button can be checked) .

Note: you can vary the wording of each answer by a number, a rate, or letter in value of particular data.

The smiley satisfaction scale

Also known as emoji or emoticons, smileys are visual elements that feature human traits: each smiley represents the face of a man or woman, associating a human expression, a more or less marked smile, or displeasure.

The shapes, colors and visual features of the illustrations reinforce the emotions of the respondent, who is thus plunged into a more emotional state when choosing his or her answer.

Each smiley corresponds to a possible answer, suggesting a more spontaneous choice for the respondent, whether in a customer survey or a questionnaire for your employees.

Example of a smiley satisfaction scale
Question in the form of a request: How would you rate the quality of your stay?
(choose the expression that corresponds to your feeling)

Answers presented as emoticons:
😭 😞 🙂 😀 😍

The question model on an even or odd scale

We can measure satisfaction with an even scale or ask for an appraisal with an odd scale. The big difference lies here: only a choice from an odd number of answers allows the respondent to take a very clear neutral position.

Using an even-numbered scale makes sense if you want to detect neutral opinions, for example. Answers can be presented in text form (letters or numbers for scoring) or visually.

Visualize the differences: text reflects a rational mindset, images leave more room for emotion.

Example of a paired scale with answers presented in text form
Question asked in the form of a statement: You received a personalized welcome.
Suggested answers (only one box can be ticked).
🗸 Totally agree
🗸 Agree
🗸 Disagree
🗸 Strongly disagree

Example of an even scale with visual responses
We can imagine that when the web surfer hovers over the stars with his mouse cursor, the stars fill in with color to signify a 1, 2, 3 or 4 star rating.
In this way, the respondent assigns a rating intuitively by referring to the visual representations.

Question presented in the form of a request: Rate the quality of your stay
(1 star means poor quality, 4 stars means excellent quality)

Answers are presented in the form of stars:
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Example of an odd-numbered scale: 5-star rating
The star rating system for hotels and restaurants has been in use for a very long time. It's one of the most universally understandable visual codes and a benchmark used by a very large number of e-tailers to evaluate customer reviews.

Question presented in the form of a request: Estimate the quality of your product.
(1 star means poor quality, 5 stars means excellent quality).

Answers are presented in the form of stars:
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

The frequency scale for your questionnaire

An attitude scale can also be used to evaluate the use of a product or service over time, and the reor the frequency of use of a venue, trade show, physical point of sale, website or e-commerce site.

A frequency scale is then used in the questionnaire.

Example of a frequency scale
Question asked in the form of a statement: Do you use a shopping cart to do your shopping?

Suggested answers (only one box can be ticked).
🗸 Always
🗸 Often
🗸 Rarely
🗸 Never

Another example:
Question asked in the form of a statement: You frequent a gym :

Suggested answers (only one box can be ticked).
🗸 Daily
🗸 Once a week
🗸 Once a month

Download the free sample satisfaction questionnaire for collecting opinions :

How to choose an attitude scale

Quality answers depend on quality questions! Here are some important points to bear in mind when choosing your satisfaction scale.

Advantages and disadvantages of attitude scales: comparative table

Before choosing an attitude scale for your satisfaction questionnaire, it's a good idea to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of each scale. We have provided the table below, which lists and summarizes the scales mentioned above:

Criteria to watch out for when formulating your answers

When a company or association implements an online satisfaction survey, it's important to put yourself in the respondent's shoes.

This is the best way to test the effectiveness of the questionnaire and, more specifically, the satisfaction scales proposed.

appvizer provides a common-sense checklist to help you make your choices:

• only one sign (text, number, visual) per proposed response; mixing the nature and number of signs complicates comprehension and misleads the reader;
• make use of usage: a scale of values starts by expressing a negative value on the left and moves towards a positive feeling on the right;
• below each question, it is advisable to describe what each end means (1 = negative; 10 = positive) to avoid any misunderstanding on the part of the reader;
• use unequivocal sentences (only one possible meaning): the reader must quickly understand what he or she is being asked to do, without asking any further questions;
• if you choose a low-amplitude scale, it's advisable to use the same amplitude to facilitate reading and choice of answers;
• it is also advisable to consider the processing of the results before formulating your questions and related answers.

The "Don't know" or "Not concerned" box

When you put yourself in a respondent's shoes, or even in the shoes of several types of respondent, you often realize that it's necessary, or even essential, to propose an additional box called "is not concerned" or "has no opinion", in addition to your evaluation scale.

This box is particularly useful in the following cases:

• an evaluation scale with an even number of responses, which encourages you to express a clear opinion, but for which you need to detect respondents who cannot give an opinion on the question because they have not (yet) used the service or product, for example;
• in the case of an odd-numbered scale, you can also use this box to differentiate between neutral and unconcerned or undecided opinions.

Why manage your survey with an online service

Choosing a satisfaction scale and creating a questionnaire is an important step: the success of your survey depends on it.

Distributing the questionnaire and analyzing the results are equally important steps in ensuring the relevance of your survey.

At the end of the chain, you need the relevant answers to assess satisfaction and adapt your marketing strategy, customer relations, product features or service quality.

Companies and associations use an online service to successfully create a scale from A to Z, and manage every stage within the same tool.

An overview of the most popular software.

The benchmark online services for a successful satisfaction survey

It's a major challenge for all types and sizes of company: large corporations, national or international groups, as well as SMEs, start-ups, VSEs or associations, are all setting up satisfaction surveys to better satisfy their respective audiences, and to better position themselves by anticipating market trends.

Drag'n Survey: multi-account monitoring for a proactive approach

Designed by marketing specialists and ergonomists, the Drag'n Survey solution makes it easy to create and manage online satisfaction questionnaires, surveys, opinion polls, market studies and quizzes. Discover the Drag'n Survey online service in video:

Drag'n Survey lets you add accounts to be supervised. For example, a sales manager can supervise the accounts of his or her colleagues, a general manager can supervise the accounts of the sales manager, etc. Sharing, distributing surveys and collecting information are thus centralized, with a hierarchical model to be respected if necessary.

The advantages of creating your own survey

20 questionnaire templates and over 500 questions to get you started and inspire your survey design. Sample questions help you enrich your survey: yes/no, multiple-choice, image rating, rating bar or matrix, ranking, etc. These ready-to-use templates save you time. Another advantage: these suggestions ensure that you don't forget any type of question essential to your survey.

As for the design, you can fully customize the theme with a simple drag & drop: colors, title, logo, text blocks, layout options to respect your graphic charter and enable your respondents to identify you at a glance.

Facilities for distributing your survey

To share your survey, you have a choice :

• by hyperlink/url: with a web address, you can share your questionnaire anywhere on the web if you so choose, on social networks, in comments on a web page (commenting on an article or on a forum, for example). In particular, you can choose to authorize only one response per IP address;
• by email (including email follow-up): by importing your contact list (or manually entering your contacts), you can segment respondents by contact group, personalize your messages, send emails directly from the tool, and track recipient reactions;
• on your website by simply integrating it: a simple copy-paste of the web link enables you to display your questionnaire on your website. You can also customize the options of this response collector.

Precision for analyzing and sharing results

You can create visual reports by selecting the following filters, for example:

• the number of responses by collector type (web link sharing, email, your own site),
• a view that hides certain responses to highlight an important element,
• the number of respondents, etc.

Each view is saved as you wish, so you can reuse them for comparison purposes. You can also set up automatic alerts that notify you by email when a threshold of respondents is reached, for example. When it's time to share your results, you have the option of exporting them in PDF or Excel format, or even better: a password-protected web link to ensure confidential accessibility of results.

Companies using Drag'n Survey

Business sectors and company sizes are very diverse: the need to assess internal and external perceptions explains this diversity. Drag'n Survey software users include L'Oréal, SACEM, IBM, BNP Paribas, Michelin, Renault Trucks, Groupama, etc.

Eval&GO: complete management made easy for faster-than-a-shadow surveys

Eval&GO is a solution that is continually enriched with the best practices and functionalities to enable its users to set up their surveys, polls and questionnaires intuitively , and ensure effective follow-up.

Discover the Eval&GO online service in video :

Speed of creation is one of the undeniable assets of the EVal&GO solution. As speed must go hand in hand with quality, an impressive number of functions are available to assist you every step of the way, from questionnaire creation to distribution and reporting.

Features that speed up questionnaire creation

20 question types and hundreds of options are available to enrich your questionnaire with variables, a Likert scale and personalize your questions, such as random display of answers, when relevant to avoid influencing the respondent. Numerous possibilities facilitate the creation of your survey, such as duplicating a question or adding it to a library for reuse, or redirecting it to a specific page depending on the answer chosen.

A design module with over 200 variables lets you customize your questionnaire, right down to the font, cursor and questionnaire color codes, and of course you can upload your company logo. Is your survey a little long? Add an introduction to draw the respondent's attention to the importance of your survey and what it can do for them. Also display a progress bar to motivate them to respond!

Survey sharing simplifiers

Sharing possibilities are equivalent to those of Drag'n Survey. We'd like to take this opportunity to mention some useful features common to both solutions, such as :

• a test link to simulate the respondent's journey before launching the survey,
• e-mail personalization with first name, last name and customer number,
• password protection to limit access to your questionnaire,
• integration of your survey in a pop-up on a specific page of your website,
• integration with iframe or javascript code, for example,
• the ability to share your questionnaires and make them available to every member of your team (for distribution, reuse, etc.).

Constantly fast report generation

Creating your reports is greatly facilitated.

These include

• automated report generation,
• customization of tables, colors and graphics,
• questionnaire view, multi-page view or reports with customized views.

As for export options, you can choose between PDF, Excel, Word, PowerPoint formats, or even the online format by sharing a link to a web page with password-protected access.

And don't forget the wide range of options available for customizing the design and layout of your reports.

Companies using Eval&GO

The organizations using the solution also come from a wide variety of sectors. Eval&GO users include over 150,000 customers. These include Royal Canin, Disney, Toyota, Hermès, Carrefour and Alcatel-Lucent, to name but a few.

See all software Marketing

A comprehensive tool to facilitate the objectives of every business manager

To remain competitive and anticipate the expectations of their respective audiences, entrepreneurs, marketing and human resources managers, for example, need to know the opinions and satisfaction levels of their customers, prospects, users and employees.

The online software services (in SaaS mode) we have presented to you meet the needs of all business managers concerned, to simplify their opinion assessment missions and assist them in the complete management of their surveys.

These tools help you to achieve your objectives, whatever their nature:

• identify user expectations through market research before launching your project,
• evaluate the quality of your service or products through a satisfaction survey, in order to improve them,
• identify new user expectations in a market through a survey,
• evaluate a service provided to your employees using an online questionnaire,
• collect data to identify the competition or carry out research,
• use marketing surveys to improve customer experience, customer relations and loyalty,
• understand visitors' behavior on your website to improve their experience.

Get ready to survey with ease. These software packages offer a wealth of possibilities: a personalized demonstration is a must!