Rating Question

Use a Rating question when you want respondents to evaluate a product, service, experience, or other item by giving it a visual score.

Ratings can be displayed using stars, hearts, or thumbs, allowing respondents to select the score that best reflects their opinion.

For example, you might ask customers to rate:

• After-sales service.
• Their interaction with a sales representative.
• A training session they attended.
• A product or service experience.

Instead of asking respondents to describe the experience in an open-text answer, you could ask:

How would you rate your experience with our customer support?

When you create an online survey, a Rating question is useful when you need structured scores that can be compared and analysed after responses are collected.

If you're measuring customer satisfaction and don't want to start from a blank survey, you can use the ready-to-use Customer Satisfaction Survey Template and adapt its questions and ratings to the experience you want to measure.

How to add a Rating question

Open the survey from My Surveys and go to the Create phase.

Select Rating from the available question types, then click it to add the question or drag and drop it into the position you want.

In the Label field, enter exactly what respondents should evaluate.

Instead of:

How would you rate this?

make the subject of the rating clear:

How would you rate the quality of our after-sales service?

or:

How would you rate your interaction with our sales team?

or:

How would you rate the training session you attended?

A specific Label makes it easier for respondents to understand what they are rating and makes the results easier to interpret later.

Use previous answers and Custom Variables

Type @ in the Label field to insert an answer from a previous question or a Custom Variable.

For example, if a customer selected the service they used earlier in the survey, a later question could say:

How would you rate your experience with @Service?

This keeps the Rating question connected to information already available in the survey without asking the respondent to provide it again.

Clarify the rating criteria with Description

Use Description when respondents need additional guidance about what they should consider before choosing a rating.

For example:

Label:

How would you rate your experience with our services?

Description:

Base your rating on the quality of the pre-purchase consultation and the support you received after purchase.

For a training survey:

Label:

How would you rate the training programme?

Description:

Consider the quality of the content, clarity of instruction, and how useful you found the programme.

You can also type @ in the Description field to insert a previous answer or a Custom Variable when it helps make the instructions more relevant.

How to set the number of rating points

Use Scale to choose how many rating points respondents can select from.

The scale can contain from 1 to 10 points.

For example, setting the Scale to 5 gives respondents a five-point rating.

Choose a scale that provides the level of detail you need. If several Rating questions measure different parts of the same experience, using the same scale across those questions can make the survey easier to answer and the results easier to compare.

How to choose the rating Shape

Use Shape to choose how the rating appears to respondents.

Available shapes include:

• Stars.
• Hearts.
• Thumbs.

For example, stars can work well when respondents are rating a service, product, or purchase experience.

The visual shape changes how the rating is presented, but the Label should still make it clear what respondents are being asked to evaluate.

How to add an image or video

Enable Image or Video when respondents need visual context before providing their rating.

For example, you could show a product or design and ask:

How would you rate this design?

Add an image

Select Image, click Choose, and upload a JPG, PNG, or GIF file no larger than 2 MB.

Add a video

Select Video, then enter the relevant video link in the field provided.

Use media that directly supports what respondents are being asked to evaluate.

How to adjust the Rating question on mobile and desktop

After adding an image, use Layout to control how it appears separately on Mobile and Desktop.

Review both layouts before publishing, especially when respondents need to examine the image before choosing their rating.

Make sure the image, Label, Description, and rating controls remain clear and easy to use on both screen sizes.

How to make the Rating question required

Enable Required when respondents must provide a rating before submitting the survey.

This can be useful when the rating is a core part of a customer satisfaction, service evaluation, or training feedback survey.

If the question does not apply to every respondent, consider leaving it optional so respondents are not required to rate an experience they did not have.

Hide the question number

Enable Hide question number when you do not want the Rating question number displayed in the survey.

This only changes the way the question appears. It does not affect the submitted rating or the response data.

How to view, export, and analyse Rating responses

Once responses start coming in, go to the Report phase and open the Results Table to review the score submitted by each respondent.

Use Export when you need the results in Excel or CSV format for further analysis.

In the analysis and charts section, Rating questions can be reviewed using available chart types together with statistical measures such as:

• Mean.
• Variance.
• Standard deviation.

For example, if customers rate after-sales service on a five-point scale, the mean gives you an overall view of the rating, while variance and standard deviation help show how closely respondents' scores are grouped or how widely they differ.

When should you use a Rating question?

Use a Rating question when respondents need to give a score to a specific product, service, experience, or other item and you want the results to be easy to compare and analyse.

Make the Label specific about what is being rated, use Description when respondents need additional criteria, and keep the Scale consistent when several Rating questions measure related parts of the same experience.

If you need a different type of structured response, review the Guide to Question Types in Porsline Forms, Surveys, and Quizzes to choose the format that best matches the data you want to collect.

If you don't have an account yet, you can create a Porsline account and start building your survey.

If you're already using Porsline and need help, contact us at [email protected].