Viewing Benchmarks in Survey Results

How to Use Benchmarks
Showing and Hiding Benchmarks
Analyzing Benchmarks
Why can't I see benchmarks?

Benchmarks give context to your survey results by allowing you to compare your results to others who used the same Question Bank questions as you. Free Global Benchmarks appear in your survey results if at least one Question Bank question you used has a benchmark. You can also buy more specific Industry Benchmarks to focus on a particular industry.

The benchmark icon indicates whether a question is benchmarkable. Look for the benchmark icon in the upper-left corner of a question when analyzing your results.

How to Use Benchmarks

Creating a Survey

To see free Global Benchmarks in your results:

Create a benchmarkable survey.
Send your survey.
Go to the Analyze Results section of your survey. You'll see a Benchmarks option in the toolbar.
If you haven't completed your profile yet, click Complete Profile at the top of the page. You need to complete your profile before you can view benchmarks.
Browse the questions in your survey for the benchmark icon and show benchmarks!

TIP! You can see benchmarks even if you haven't collected any survey responses! Just create a survey using benchmarkable questions, then head straight to the Analyze Results section of the survey.

Paid Benchmarks

You can buy Industry Benchmarks for specific comparison groups to help you narrow down the types of organizations included in a benchmark, like country or industry. On some plans, you get a paid Industry Benchmark for free!

Showing and Hiding Benchmarks

You can see benchmarks in the Analyze Results section of any of your surveys in which you used benchmarkable questions.

Action	Steps
Show Benchmark	Click Show Benchmark above the question chart to compare your results against the benchmark available for that individual question.
Hide Benchmark	Click Hide Benchmark to show your results for the question without the benchmark included.
Show or Hide All	Click the arrow to the right of the benchmark button to reveal the option to show or hide benchmarks for all questions at once.
Show Top 25%	Available when you buy benchmarks. Select Benchmarks from the toolbar, then click the three dots to the right of a benchmark to add a view that includes only the organizations whose results are in the top 25% of the benchmark.

TIP! You can also buy Industry Benchmarks for specific comparison groups to help you narrow down the types of organizations included in a benchmark, like country or industry.

Shared Surveys

People can see benchmarks on surveys shared by you. Basically, if you can see benchmarks, so can they!

Analyzing Benchmarks

Chart Types
After showing benchmarks, click Chart Type above a benchmarkable question to choose your preferred chart type.
- A horizontal or vertical bar chart that gives you a side-by-side comparison of your results for each answer choice against the results for each answer choice in the benchmark.
- A box plot of the weighted average for a particular question against the quartiles of benchmark.
- A gauge chart specific to the NPS question that compares your NPS against the NPS and quartiles of the benchmark.
- A skinny donut chart specific to the Top 2 Box Score.
- A horizontal or vertical bar chart specific to the Top 2 Box Score.

Using Quartiles to See Where You Stand

The box-and-whiskers plot and the gauge chart display quartiles of the benchmark. Knowing which quartiles you fall between allows you to better understand where you stand in comparison to the organizations included in the benchmark.

Quartile	Description
Minimum	The lowest score in the benchmark.
Lower Quartile	75% of organizations have scores that are higher than this number
Median	50% of organizations have scores that are higher than this number
Upper Quartile	25% of organizations have scores that are higher than this number
Maximum	The highest score in the benchmark

If your score falls between the lower quartile and the median, it's in the bottom 25-50% of all organizations in the benchmark.
If your score falls between the median and the upper quartile, it's in the top 50-75% of all organizations in the benchmark.
If your score falls between the upper quartile and the maximum, it's in the top 25% of all organizations in the benchmark.

Top 2 Box Score
Top 2 Box Score is the percentage of respondents who selected one of the top two answer options for a question.
For any eligible question, you'll see the percentage of your respondents who chose the top two answers compared to the percentage of respondents in the benchmark who chose the top two answers—so you can easily benchmark yourself against leaders in your industry.

To use Top 2 Box Score:
1. Show benchmarks.
2. In the upper-right corner of the question, click Chart Type.
3. Choose one of the Top 2 Box Score charts.
4. Click Save.
The Top 2 Box Score is only available for benchmarkable, Likert Scale questions, and benchmarks must be turned on to use it.
Applying a Compare Rule
If you add a Compare Rule to your survey results, you can compare different response groups to the benchmark.
For example, let's say you want to compare customer feedback about two different store locations.
1. Add a Multiple Choice question to your survey asking respondents to select the store location they visited.
2. Apply a Compare Rule to that question.
3. Browse the benchmarkable questions in your survey—you'll see a side-by-side view of the results from those two stores and the benchmark.
Exporting Benchmark Data
If you have a paid Industry Benchmark, you can export a CSV of raw benchmark data. To export a CSV:
1. Select Benchmarks from the toolbar.
2. Click the three dots to the right of a benchmark in the left sidebar and Download CSV.
Analyze Tools Restrictions
When benchmarks are turned on, some analyze features may behave differently:
- Benchmark data and charts are not included in exports of your survey results, shared data pages, or Data Trends.
- If you add a Filter rule, only your survey data is filtered—the benchmark data is not filtered.
- If you save a View with benchmarks turned on, the Filter or Show rules applied are saved as normal. Benchmark visibility is controlled by the button directly above the question chart and is not dependent on the View applied.
Hiding all benchmarks allows you full access to your analyze tools.

Why can't I see benchmarks?

In the following cases, you might not be able to view benchmarks or you may see a display warning:

If you're part of a team, you can view benchmarks on surveys shared with you, as long as the survey owner can view benchmarks (you don't have to complete your profile or opt in). If you're the survey owner, you can't show benchmarks if you've opted out of benchmarks or if you haven't completed your profile.
You won't be able to see a benchmark if you changed the question type or edited the number of answer options for the question.
You can still see a benchmark if you edited the question text. However, your comparisons might not be valid for benchmarks since your questions may have been interpreted differently by your respondents than by others who saw the questions as they were originally written.
To preserve anonymity and to provide accurate comparisons, we have requirements on how much benchmark data we need in order to display benchmarks for a particular question. We're working hard to make sure that we have coverage in all of the questions we offer benchmarking. You can hide the benchmark for that question to see your results instead.

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