Question types

Mindful Feedback provides six different question types, all of which are detailed in this article. As you will see, different question types can be better suited to different scenarios and use cases, and they can work in synergy with each other in a carefully crafted survey.

Number Questions

Number questions accept an integer response between 1 and the max response setting. This can be used for any sort of scaled question. In web interactions, the respondent will be presented with a sliding number line control that they can pick a number on. Under the advanced settings for the question, you can define labels that are placed on the start, end, and middle points of the number line to help explain the scale to the respondent.

For other survey media, the number line is not visible, so it is important to explain the scale of the question to the respondent as part of the question prompt, or as part of the instructions prompt if all of the questions in your survey use the same scale.

SMS-type surveys will accept any numeric response within the range of the question but will round to the nearest whole number. So if a respondent replies to a 1-5 question with 3.7, the answer recorded will be 4.

For voice surveys the respondent must respond to number questions using their telephone keypad. It is important to explain this to the respondent using your question or instructions prompts.

Note: For Number questions, you can now allow customers to respond via voice by saying a number. This feature is disabled by default, and customers can still respond via DTMF if they choose. To enable voice response, contact the Mindful Support team.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

A unique type of number question. These questions work on a defined scale from 0 to 10 and are intended to be used with a Net Promoter Score question prompt. Mindful Feedback aggregates these questions based on the NPS system where 0-6 is considered a detractor, 7-8 is passive and 9-10 are promoters. The NPS score is calculated as the percentage of promoter responses minus the percentage of detractor responses. Results of NPS-type questions are shown in the NPS charts on the Dashboard.

Note: For Net Promoter Score questions, you can now allow customers to respond via voice by saying a number. This feature is disabled by default, and customers can still respond via DTMF if they choose. To enable voice response, contact the Mindful Support team.

Text/Record

This type is for open-response questions. In web-type surveys, the respondent will be presented with a large text box in which they can write whatever they like. For SMS-based surveys, the full content of the response SMS will be stored as the answer. For voice surveys, the respondent can leave a voice recording which will be automatically transcribed. Both the transcription and actual voice recording are stored and accessible for a survey interaction.

For recording questions, the max response determines the maximum recording time in seconds. For other survey types, the max response value is not used.

Yes/No

A Yes/No question allows the user to respond with either Yes or No. For web-based surveys, this is presented as a choice of two buttons. The button labels can be customized using the min and max label prompts.

For voice surveys, the question is answered using the telephone keypad. In this case, 1 is considered a Yes, and 2 is considered a No. It is important to make this clear to the respondent in either the question or instructions prompt.

SMS requires a text response from the respondent containing either "yes" or "no" in the specified respondent language. The response is case insensitive. The following respondent languages are currently supported for Yes/No SMS.

Language"Yes" ResponseNo "Response"
English*YesNo
SpanishNo
GermanJaNein
CzechAnoNe
FrenchOuiNon
ItalianNo
DutchJaNee
DanishJaNej
SwedishJaNej
PolishTakNie
PortugueseSimNão
RussianДаНет
UkrainianТакНі
SwahiliNdiyoHapana

If the selected respondent language is not supported, Mindful will default to interpreting the response as if it was in English. Note: If you would like support for Yes/No in another language not listed, reach out to your Mindful representative.

Note:

English surveys support more common words for yes and no. Such as: "yep" and "nope". Also, any response that starts with a yes or no word is considered a yes/no. For example "yes please" is "Yes" and "no yes" is considered "No".

Note: For Yes/No questions, you can now allow customers to respond via voice. This feature is disabled by default, and customers can still respond via DTMF if they choose. To enable voice response, contact the Mindful Support team.

Multiple Choice

Multiple-choice questions allow the respondent to select one or more responses from a predefined list. When defining the response list you must include a label and a prompt for each option. The label is what will actually be stored in the response and is used for reporting, while the prompt is what gets shown to the respondent. The max response value for this question type defines how many responses the respondent is able to select.

Note:

Multiple-choice questions are only available for web surveys by default. For SMS or Web SMS, multiple-choice type questions will be silently skipped. Contact Mindful Support to enable multiple-choice questions for Inbound or Outbound voice.

Prompt Only

A Prompt Only question does not expect a response. These question types are simply used to play extra survey prompts that might give the respondent more information. Once a user has been presented with a prompt question the survey immediately moves on to the next question or to the closing prompt if it is the final question.