How to Build a Likert Scale Survey with WordPress

If you are a proprietor of online services or products looking for a fast and easy way to collect customer satisfaction data, consider adopting a Likert Scale survey.

If you are unfamiliar, the Likert Scale is a popular method used to measure opinions. Answers typically range from strongly agree to strongly disagree and are based on a five or seven-point scale allowing users to rate their satisfaction levels.

This tutorial will show you how to create a Likert Scale survey using our template generator. How to generate and save the survey score for data analysis. And conclude with creative ways to boost form completion, ensuring you get that data need.

So let’s get cracking!

How to build a Likert Scale survey WordPress form

Our WordPress form builder makes creating a Likert Scale survey easy. You don’t even need additional add-ons. All you need to begin building your survey is our free Ninja Forms plugin and a few minutes.

Step 1: Enable Advanced Settings for Ninja Forms

First, install and activate the Ninja Forms plugin for your WordPress installation. Next, navigate to Ninja Forms > Settings > Advanced Settings. Look for Form Builder “Dev Mode” and ensure that this option is “checked.”

Enabling Dev Mode turns on advanced form features, allowing you to change label positions, give form fields custom name attributes, enable access to administration settings, and add calc values to list fields.

Step 2: Build your WordPress form Likert Scale survey

From your WordPress Dashboard, navigate to Ninja Forms > Add New. This will take you to the WordPress form templates. Choose the Collect Feedback template.

The Collect Feedback form contains the following six fields:

• First Name
• Last name
• Email
• How would you rate our last newsletter? 
• How would you rate our last blog article? 
• Any additional feedback?

Since the Likert Scale is a scale where users can express how much they agree or disagree, we will adjust the two radio list fields: how would you rate our last newsletter, and how would you rate our last blog article.

Step 3: Adding numerical values to your Radio List field(s)

All list fields ( i.e., Select and Checklist ) come included with the calc value feature. So if you rather use a different list field for your survey, you are more than welcome.

Click on the blue gear icon to open up the field settings. This will reveal an options section where you should see three columns: label, value, and calc value.

Next, re-arrange the list by drag-and-dropping the options, so Very Unsatisfied is listed first, and Very Satisfied is listed last.

 

After that, add a numerical value to the CALC VALUE column of each option. The calc value is what will determine the survey score.

That’s it! You have set up your first field. Repeat these steps for the remaining questions you wish to add to the survey.

Hot Tip 🤯

Decide on the number of questions you are going to ask your customer.  That way you can craft one field, and then duplicate it instead, instead of manually building a new field for each subsequent question. This will save you from having to re-create 5, 10, or even 20 fields manually.

Duplicate the field, as many times as you need, and then replace the label with the Likert scale question, for each field.

Final Step:  Creating the Likert Scale calculation

Click on the Advanced tab of the form builder, then select Calculations.

This is where we will take the calc values from the various fields to create a survey score. To make the calculation, click the blue Add New button next to the blue plus sign to reveal a VARIABLE NAME and EQUATION field.

First, give the calculation a variable name; next, select your survey questions by clicking the merge-tag icon selector. Lastly, add a + sign next to each one to add them together.

All you need to do now is track the satisfaction score.   You can add a hidden field to your form and select the calculation via the merge tag selector.

That way, when the form is submitted, you will have a way to reference the satisfaction score. See, that wasn’t so hard! For more information on lead scoring, read, How to Setup Lead Scoring with WordPress. We go over how to qualify a lead in three easy steps.

Additional ways to enhance your Likert Scale survey

Now that you know how easy it is to create a Likert Scale survey, let’s look at a few more ways you can add enhancements to your newly built survey.

Hide or reveal survey questions based on user responses

If you’ve ever taken a personality test before, you know that you are fed questions based on your responses to previous questions. So why not tailor your Likert survey in a similar fashion? With our Conditional Logic add-on, you can HIDE/SHOW specific questions to guide your patron down a custom path. Ensuring they recieve questions pertinent to previous answers, tailoring the form specific to them.

Read, How to Add Dynamic Field with Conditional Logic for a step-by-step guide on how to create dynamic fields.

Break the survey into multiple parts

You’ve spent a lot of time developing a thoughtful survey, so making sure you recieve responses is critical. Instead of stuffing all your survey questions into a single page, and overwhelming your user, consider separating those questions into various steps with our Multi-Step Form add-on.

According to HubSpot, Multi-Step forms convert 86% higher than single-page forms.   So if your survey contains many questions, this is a must.

 

In Quick Tips for Multi-Step Forms, we show you how to hide/show steps, create preview pages, save progress, and let others print forms. All of these are invaluable when it comes to your Likert scale survey.

Analyze form data with Excel

Let’s face it, using a CSV file to manipulate survey form data is a pain, primarily when more user-friendly options like Excel exist. Our Excel Export add-on gives you the freedom to create exports from your submission data specifically formatted to Excel. Now you have the power to create pivot tables, spreadsheets, and much much more.

Learn how to export your Ninja Forms submission to an Excel spreadsheet in this quick how-to guide.

Explore WordPress form data with Google Sheets

If you rather send your form submissions to Google Sheets instead of Excel, we got you covered!  You can connect your WordPress form to Google Sheets with our Zapier add-on.  This will give you the power to manage your survey responses on a Google Sheet rather than individually on the Excel spreadsheet.

Find out how by reading our step-by-step guide on connecting  WordPress forms to Google Sheets.

Did you like learning about the Likert Scale?

Today you learned what a Likert Scale survey is and how easy it is to create one using our template generator. If you would like to learn more about other forms of market research, I recommend reading How to use Ninja Forms for Market Research.

In it, we explain what primary market research is, the benefits, how you conduct market research, the questions you should ask, and how often research should take place.

We are confident you will love Ninja Forms. Our Plus/I’m Growing package comes included with the Conditional Logic,  Multi-Step Forms, Layout and Styles, and File Uploads add-ons. It includes priority support, 20% off any additional add-ons and 3 sites installations. Take your survey data to the next level and apply the 20% discount included with the Basic Plus/I’m Growing to purchase the Excel Export add-on. We offer a 14-day money-back guarantee on all our products, so what do you have to lose?