Dichotomous survey questions are straightforward and responsive. It is qualitative in nature and seeks simple responses. However, a yes or no question falls under dichotomous questions. These simple, binary questions help you gather quick, actionable feedback from your customers with minimal friction. In this blog, we’ll explore what they are, their advantages, use cases, and best practices for making them work in your favor.

What Are Yes or No Survey Questions?

Yes or no survey questions offer only two response options: “Yes” or “No.” These questions fall under the category of dichotomous questions. It is simple and designed to capture a customer’s opinion in a clear, black-and-white format.

Example:

“Did you find what you were looking for on our website?”
Yes
No

What are dichotomous questions?

The term dichotomous simply means “divided into two parts.” In the context of surveys, it refers to questions that have only two possible responses, such as:

• Yes or No
  
• True or False
  
• Agree or Disagree

Dichotomous questions are used widely in market research, customer feedback, employee satisfaction surveys because of how easy they are to respond to and analyze.

Why Use Dichotomous Questions in a Survey?

Most customers may have a high survey dropout rate if questions are long. A dichotomous question will bring a high response rate. 

1. Simple to read and reply

Objective survey questions are simple to read and respond to. Multilingual surveys that also contain a simple dichotomous question will see a high survey response rate. Since they don’t require much cognitive effort, yes or no questions are more likely to be answered. This is true for survey channels such as WhatsApp surveys, messenger surveys, email surveys or SMS.

2. Platform responsive questions

Survey polls and quizzes have a high response rate when it offers binary question types. These questions are responsive across platforms of various mobile devices and desktops. Merren’s dichotomous survey questions are highly mobile responsive. You can reach out to your customers without any hassle. 

3. Collects data across touchpoints

Yes or no survey questions can collect prompt data across various touch points. For example, to gauge mobile app usage, developers can push a simple yes/no survey. 

“Did you recently use our mobile app? Yes/ No”. It collects prompt usage data without the fluff. Customer experience surveys can effectively use yes/no questions via pulse surveys.

4. Easy to analyze responses

There are only two outcomes of a binary type of question. The data aggregation and pattern recognition are straightforward. This means faster reporting and quicker decision-making. For example, marketers can gauge the number of users who are not aware of a brand. They can create better marketing campaigns that are only targeted to this specific user base.

Disadvantages of Using Yes/No Questions

Simple binary survey questions can only collect extremes of responses. It does not gather detailed information on a customer’s experience or emotional metrics. For complex topics, customers need to elucidate their views, experiences and opinions. Here, yes/no question format will not be useful. 

This format is not always helpful to derive information in the following situations:

• Yes or no questions don’t explain why the customer chose a particular option. For example, if someone says “No” to “Are you satisfied with our service?”, you still don’t know what went wrong. To avert this, follow up with an open ended question: “give us the reason for the rating.”
•  Many customer experiences are nuanced. Reducing them to binary choices may remove emotions-based aspects or subjective experiences.
• Yes or no questions don’t work well when customer preferences or behaviors can’t be explained in binary terms. For example:
  “Do you like our app?”

This doesn’t tell you which part of the app works or doesn’t.

• There’s no option for “Maybe,” “Not sure,” or “Sometimes.” Ambiguously worded yes/no questions can confuse respondents and bring inaccurate data.
• There is potential for bias with a simple true/false or a yes/no dichotomous question. Respondents may answer “Yes” just to finish quickly or avoid thinking deeply. This can be true for mobile or chat-based surveys.
• From a customer experience analytics standpoint, these questions don’t allow for segmentation based on levels of satisfaction or intensity of opinion.