When conducting surveys, collecting feedback, or doing market research, the quality of your questions can make or break the insights you gather. That’s where open-ended questions play a powerful role.

Unlike close-ended questions that restrict responses to predefined options (like “yes” or “no”), open-ended questions invite thoughtful, detailed answers. They help you get to the “why” behind the “what”—and that’s gold for anyone in customer experience, market research, product development, or service design.

What are Open-Ended Questions?

Open-ended survey questions allow people to share their opinions, thoughts and experiences in their own words without any limited options. Allowing space for (self-expression) open-ended questions gives you qualitative data—rich, contextual insights that numbers alone can’t capture. They typically begin with:

• “What…”
• “Why…”
• “How…”
• “Describe…”
• “Tell us about…”

Example:
Close-ended: ” On a scale of 1-5, please rate your experience with our service today?”
Open-ended: “What is the reason behind your rating?” 

When to use open-ended questions in a survey?

Use open-ended survey questions in a survey when you want to do the following activities:

• If brands want to understand customer opinions and emotions based on a commercial experience
  
• Explore the reasons behind a specific behavior or decision of purchase
  
• Test new product ideas or concepts and capture public response
  
• Evaluate service or employee performance in detail (can be anonymous probing too)
  
• Collect testimonials or user-generated content across customer feedback surveys or social media platforms

Why Use Open-Ended Questions in a Survey?

People have thought processes that you need to capture, other than numeric metrics. Here is why open-ended questions are essential to your data collection strategy:

1. Collect quantitative data on customer experiences

It is necessary for any CX team to understand their target market. The aim is to obtain information about the user’s preferences, behaviours and why they prefer a certain benchmark. Giving the chance to share opinions encourages people to share their testimonials and grievances. This means people can elaborate on why they rated a certain scale with a particular number. Seeking response goes beyond the numbers.

2. Use data to improve customer experiences

Sometimes, a numerical metric may not denote much beyond a rating or a satisfaction scale. Offer a survey section where customers can share qualitative insights behind the rating. Marketers will understand and uncover unexpected perspectives. Open-ended questions are an excellent tool for exploring new topics. People can share certain keywords that can help you curate better strategies to improve customer experiences. 

3. Get details on ‘why’ behind negative feedback

Open-ended responses can help people vent about their negative experience. However, people are also tempted to share their negative or positive experiences on social media platforms, third party review sites or website testimonials on ecommerce sites. Customer experience leaders need to close the feedback loop when they gather negative customer feedback. Solve customer pain points and improve CX strategies. 

Open-Ended Questions: Advantages and Disadvantages

Examples of Open-Ended Questions in Surveys

Collect qualitative feedback using these examples.

Customer feedback surveys

• What could we improve in our services?
• How would you describe your experience with our product?

Market research questionnaires

• What features are important to you in this product?
• What made you choose our brand over competitors?

Employee feedback surveys

• What motivates you to work at our company?
• What challenges do you face in your current role?
• What changes would you like to see in the department?

Education and training questionnaires

• What part of the lesson was most engaging for you?
• How can we improve this course for future learners?
• Why do you prefer our institution for this course?

Product development surveys

• What do you think of our beta iOS 26 update? 
• Can you describe a feature that you think is missing?
• How has our product helped you in your business?

Best Practices to Create Good Open-Ended Questions

Here are some valuable guidelines that you can use when you build a customer survey. The end goal of the survey is also to collect candid feedback or constructive criticism along the touchpoints.

1. Focus on simple language

Focus on keeping the language simple even after translating the question in other languages. Avoid using closed questions that can steer respondents towards a positive answer. This may encourage one-word answers or restrict critical thinking. Ask for qualitative feedback immediately after a numeric rating scale.   

For example 

1. Rate the experience on a scale of 1 to 5
2. Share your reason for the rating below: 

2. Rephrase leading questions

A leading question is the one that prompts respondents to answer in a desired manner. Avoid this error since that may cause bias and produce skewed results. Use neutral and non-judgmental wording when asking participants to “describe” or “tell me about” their experiences.

For example “Did you like our detailed services?” would prompt the respondent into a ‘yes or no’ type of an answer. A better way to frame it would be: “How would you rate our services?“- provided with a rating scale and a space for them to explain their opinion on the rating.

3. Seek a range of response

Design the qualitative question in a way that encourages people to respond freely without bias or fear of judgement. Encourage multimedia input such as photos, videos or voice notes using Merren CX. This can help customer experience professionals get more insights into the customer sentiments. 

For example, “Please share the reason for the rating (share product photos here)”

4. Keep one question at a time

Double-barreled questions have two questions in a single sentence. This format confused respondents and ultimately obtain no reasonable information. Example: What do you think of our customer support and delivery process?. Break the sentences into two parts such that customers can offer feedback on customer support and delivery process separately.

Current Challenges Of Open Ended Questions in a Survey:

1. Time-consuming to analyze:
   Processing qualitative data can be labour-intensive and time-consuming. Marketers have to assess individual data to understand various patterns. However, using Merren AI for survey analysis, clients can get a detailed analysis of individual responses.
   

2. Risk of low response rate:
   Some respondents may avoid answering open-ended questions because they require more effort than closed-ended ones.

Tips to Create Responsive Open-Ended Questions

Keep direct questions:

Direct questions are clear, to the point and mostly jargon free. Jargon free questions get a greater response rate. Simple language will solicit a greater number of responses for authentic qualitative data. 

Offer follow ups as a context:

Open-ended is mostly used to collect detailed opinions on certain experiences. This can be a follow-up question after a satisfaction rating metric (Net Promoter Score NPS, Customer Satisfaction Score CSAT, Customer Effort Score CES). The metric based questions provide a context for the respondent to share details on their rating. 

Use AI-driven open-ended prompts:

AI-powered open ended prompts enable genuine feedback from people. These qualitative questions are AI-driven to create questions based on the previous response. Merren offers AI-driven open-ended prompt that can collect pertinent detail on a customer’s experience. Read more about it here: AI driven open ended probing questions. 

Offer space for elaborate answers:

Short answer boxes may discourage them from providing thorough answers. Provide ample space for opinion based response. This will give you more data on the customer’s perspective, their pain points or their satisfaction status at touchpoints. Alternately, seek multimedia responses in the form of photos, audio or video responses to allow a range of expression from your audience.

Use it sparingly in long surveys:

Too many qualitative questions can overwhelm a respondent. Answering each one can feel repetitive. Use it to compliment a numeric or a rating scale. This enables people to understand the context behind each of these questions. Short surveys may not always need too many questions. One of each qualitative and quantitative will suffice. For in-depth market research, researchers can opt to collect more open-ended responses.

How to Analyze Open-Ended Question Responses?

Choose a software that can segregate responses based on ratings and opinions. Here is how you can assess qualitative data. 

1. Coding and categorization

Categorize and code the responses into significant groupings. Identify prevalent themes, concepts, or subjects that arise from the information. Allocate corresponding labels or codes to every response based on their respective categories. This aids in organizing the data and simplifies comparison and explanation.

2. Create actionable insights

Identify common patterns in the analysis process. Communicating this information is critical via multiple-choice questions or visual aids like charts or graphs. Extremes of emotions can help you understand if consumers are unhappy at a certain touchpoint. For example, the rating for a product could be marked as ‘good’ but respondents might also want to add a critical point to note. 

3. Sentiment analysis and word cloud

Ai-driven sentiment analysis can categorize responses into three categories: happiness, frustration and unhappiness metrics. Word cloud segregation can highlight key themes and recurring themes. This will give an insight into 

4. Manual reading and reflection

It is imperative to go through each response with careful attention and manually assess qualitative data. Be mindful of any subtle nuances, underlying emotions, or implicit messages that may not be immediately visible. Take note of the tone, language employed, and the overall context of the response. By conducting a thorough reading you can go beyond surface-level observations.

Conclusion

Open-ended questions are a powerful tool for collecting qualitative data. They allow you to tap into the thoughts, experiences of your audience in a way that closed-ended questions cannot . By understanding your audience and encouraging detailed responses, you can gain valuable insights that can help shape your business strategy and decision-making.

Using Merren, you can opt for customized templates to help you build your own survey. Use our vivid charting facilities to segment your qualitative data into actionable insights. Bring insights at a superfast speed today. Try our features and sign up for a 14 day free trial and 10X your response rate.