Satisfaction scales - positive to negative or negative to positive

[SurveyLady]

Are there rules about how to list a satisfaction scale, such as Strongly Agree to Disagree? We generally list the scale negative to positive if using a matrix design (online or mail survey). If we list the options below a question, should we start with the negative or positive? Is there a difference if we're asking the question in a phone survey?

[Ted Schmitt]

Welcome to the Cove !!

Being the optimistic person I am, I would always start with the positive first...

You might want to check ISO 10001:2007 - Guideline for Customer Satisfaction. Not sure it will have your answer there, but might be a good starting point.

[warton-john]

I don't think that there is any real convention on layout i.e. whether to show scales as positive to negative or negative to positive.

Would be worth ensuring consistency across a number of questions though, not to confuse the respondant therefore make all scales range the same way (whichever way you choose).

Also, for rating type scales it would be sensible to have an even number of choices (scores) that the respondant has to choose from (this forces a decison to be made) rather than just select the middle option when there is an odd number of choices.

You may decide you want to have more positive choices than negative choices or vice versa - depends on what you expect the results might be and how discreetly you want to measure the scores. Also, a larger amount of positive choices might allow for more incremental improvement to be measured.

Hope this is useful.

All the best.

John.

[SteelMaiden]

I usually see negative to positive, as the scales are typically numeric, no?
1=strongly disagree 5=strongly agree?

[JaneB]

Originally Posted by warton-john

Would be worth ensuring consistency across a number of questions though, not to confuse the respondant therefore make all scales range the same way (whichever way you choose).

Good advice, John.

You particularly want to watch out for the 'donkey vote' - ie, assume one is happy, and that almost all the questions in that case would be ticked at the RH end of the scale. Avoid the one or two questions that actually require the left side to be ticked instead.

[warton-john]

Originally Posted by JaneB

Good advice, John.

You particularly want to watch out for the 'donkey vote' - ie, assume one is happy, and that almost all the questions in that case would be ticked at the RH end of the scale. Avoid the one or two questions that actually require the left side to be ticked instead.

Jane,

I am sure that this catches a lot of people out.

As well as ranging the scales in one direction only e.g. left (poor) to right (excellent) or vice versa, I would say that if possible make the scoring consistent as well i.e. score all questions in the same number range e.g. scores for each question range 1-4 or 1-10 or something similar but not mixed ranges.

I would make sure that an optional free format comments box is also available for each question. Raw numbers do not provide the whole story as we all know, and a Customer Satisfaction Survey is a real chance to gather customer feedback, and we need to get as much value from the Survey as we can.

Regards,

John.

[JaneB]

Excellent advice all round, John. I agree with all you say.

I'm always strongly in favour of the free format part for the various reasons you describe. And I particularly dislike any kind of form that either omits it, or allocates such a stingy amount of space that I figure they're seriously NOT interested in hearing. (I never bother completing such forms myself, either).