For those of you who have conducted surveys using the Likert scale in Indonesia, you may have encountered a common issue.
Many respondents tend to give answers at the higher end of the scale, for example, 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale. Even on a 10-point scale, answers often cluster around 7, 8, 9, or 10. In reality, some questions should be answered with a low number, such as 1 or 2, but respondents rarely do this. This phenomenon might be found in other countries as well, but it's quite prevalent in Indonesia. In European or American countries, respondents are more open to giving low ratings; I've even analyzed data in Singapore and the answers were more evenly distributed.
This becomes a problem because the purpose of the Likert scale is to obtain a diverse distribution of answers, from low to high. If all the answers are concentrated at the high end, we cannot clearly understand the extent of respondents' interest in the product we are offering.
For example, if many respondents answer 4 or 5, can we conclude that they will buy our product? It's possible that the product might not actually be viable in the market. This can lead us to incorrect conclusions. We might feel our product is ready to launch because the average respondent answers are supportive. However, these answers often don't reflect reality. To address this issue, here are three tips I commonly use in Likert scale surveys in Indonesia:

1. Use a Comparison Product: Ask respondents about our product and then compare it with a competitor's product. This way, we can see significant differences between products. If there is no clear difference, add a question about which product they would rate higher.
2. Compare to a Standard: Use a norm or standard derived from the answers of respondents in Indonesia. For example, if the average answer is 4.78 out of 5, it seems high at first glance, but we need to know if it's better or worse than the general average standard for Indonesian respondents, or what we call the "norm." This norm can also vary depending on the category or profile of respondents, such as gender or age.
3. Top Box Analysis: Focus on the highest answer on the Likert scale. For a 5-point scale, look only at respondents who chose the top box or the highest number, which is 5. For a 10-point scale, we can see the percentage who gave a 10, or for a Likert scale with more points, consider those who chose the top 2 boxes, 9 or 10.

This is always a challenge, but we can still find ways to analyze the responses of Indonesian people, who tend to be kind-hearted, using the Likert scale, even though the scale's original purpose—to obtain a spread of answers—is not achieved.
Is there another way? Yes, normalization. We'll discuss that in the next article.