Creating customer surveys that drive valuable insights is more important today than ever before. And the way you design your survey plays a major role in both the quality and quantity of responses you get by collecting customer feedback.
Whether you’re looking to measure customer satisfaction, collect feedback after a key interaction, or track customer sentiment over time, the questions you ask need to be purposeful and well-crafted.
This is especially true today, as survey response rates are declining. Every year, fewer people respond to formal surveys, so you need to make every question count.
In this guide, we’re sharing a curated selection of survey questions that you can use to craft customer surveys for the best response rates and insights possible, along with some tips on how to approach your survey design.
What Is a Customer Survey?
A customer survey is a structured questionnaire designed to collect feedback from customers about their experiences with your product, service, or brand. A customer feedback survey is particularly useful for evaluating customer satisfaction and gathering insights on product performance. These surveys are an essential tool for customer insights teams, allowing them to measure satisfaction, track sentiment over time, and identify areas for improvement. For insights professionals, customer surveys offer a direct way to listen to the Voice of the Customer, which can then be translated into actionable strategies.
Surveys can take many forms—ranging from quick, one-question pulse checks to more detailed questionnaires. They can be distributed through various channels, including email, social media, or embedded directly into websites. At their core, customer surveys are about gathering data that helps businesses understand their customers better.
By strategically designing these surveys and asking the right questions, you ensure the feedback you receive is both comprehensive and relevant to your business objectives.
Importance of Customer Surveys
Customer surveys play a crucial role in shaping business strategies, giving you direct insights into customer experiences, needs, and pain points.
When crafted thoughtfully, they enable businesses to make data-driven decisions that improve customer satisfaction, loyalty, and overall business performance.
Customer feedback questions are essential tools in these surveys, helping to categorize and understand various aspects of customer experiences and preferences.
Here are just a few of the benefits of running well-crafted customer surveys:
Improved Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty – well-designed customer surveys help businesses understand how satisfied their customers are and where improvements can be made. Measuring customer satisfaction through surveys like CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) and NPS (Net Promoter Score) allows insights teams to spot areas where customer experiences fall short and address them, improving long-term loyalty.
Deeper Understanding of Customer Needs – surveys provide businesses with a direct line to their customers, helping to uncover unmet needs, preferences, and desires. This understanding allows for the refinement of products and services, making them more aligned with customer expectations.
Tracking Customer Sentiment Over Time – By conducting surveys regularly, insights teams can track how customer sentiment evolves. This is particularly useful for identifying trends, such as improving or declining satisfaction, which can then inform broader customer experience strategies.
Actionable Insights for Every Department – the feedback collected from customer surveys isn’t limited to just the customer insights team. It can also help other departments like product development, marketing, and customer support understand how they can improve their processes and better serve customers.
When Should You Use a Customer Survey?
Customer surveys can be applied in various contexts, each providing unique value:
To understand customer satisfaction: Whether you want to evaluate overall satisfaction with your brand or satisfaction with a specific product, service, or interaction, customer surveys can provide that clarity.
Post-transaction feedback: These surveys help businesses understand how customers felt about a particular experience, such as purchasing a product, interacting with customer service, or completing a transaction online. They're especially useful for identifying pain points in the customer journey.
Measuring perceptions after changes: When companies make significant changes, such as launching new features or improving services, customer surveys can offer invaluable feedback on how those changes are perceived and whether they deliver the intended impact.
By focusing on these specific contexts, customer insights teams can use surveys to drive better business outcomes and deliver more tailored, impactful experiences to their customers.
Different Types of Customer Surveys
There are several types of surveys you can create, depending on your objectives. Here are some:
Customer Satisfaction surveys(CSAT) are perhaps the most common, typically asking a direct question about the customer’s overall satisfaction with a product or service.
Net Promoter Score surveys(NPS) measure customer loyalty by asking how likely a customer is to recommend your brand to others, offering a quick snapshot of overall sentiment.
Customer Effort Score surveys(CES) assess how easy it was for customers to complete a particular task or interaction, such as making a purchase or resolving an issue with customer support.
Post-Interaction Surveys focus on feedback immediately following a specific touchpoint, such as a call with customer service or a completed purchase.
Customer feedback surveys are crucial for building reciprocal relationships with customers. They not only reveal customer sentiments but also allow brands to take actionable steps toward improvement, thus driving revenue and enhancing customer experience across various channels.
Each type of survey serves a different purpose, but all are essential in painting a complete picture of the customer experience.
What Does a Good Customer Survey Look Like?
A good customer survey isn’t just about asking questions—it’s about asking the right questions in the right way. The key is to strike a balance between collecting useful data and respecting your customer’s time and attention. A well-designed survey should be easy to navigate, with clear and concise questions that target specific areas of interest.
An important golden rule is: don’t ask questions the business already knows the answer to. If you are asking a question like, “did you receive your package,” this is data you should be able to pull out with your own analytics, and not put the burden on your customer to answer for you.
Another great rule of thumb is to keep your questions as minimal as possible. Especially if you are crafting an NPS survey for example, try to keep it to two questions. A good combination is a simple numerical rating question, as well as the “would you recommend” question staple for NPS. Surveys that take too long will likely see lower completion rates. Typically, a survey that can be completed in under 10 minutes is optimal.
Using a customer satisfaction survey template or dashboard can help you achieve a structured and effective approach to surveys, enhancing response rates and gathering actionable insights.
The content and format of your questions are also crucial. For example, incorporating a mix of quantitative questions like rating scales (CSAT or NPS) and qualitative, open-ended questions can provide both numerical data and deeper insights into customer motivations and experiences. Each question should have a clear purpose—either to measure satisfaction, gain feedback on a product or service, or understand customer needs.
Equally important is the timing and context of your survey. Sending a post-interaction survey right after a customer support call or following a product purchase ensures that the experience is fresh in the customer’s mind, leading to more accurate and relevant feedback.
Finally, personalizing surveys by addressing the customer by name and tailoring questions to their specific journey with your company can help boost engagement and make customers feel valued.
55 Best Customer Survey Questions
To help you design your surveys with impact, we’ve compiled a list of 55 of the best customer survey questions that can help you tap into your customers’ true feelings, motivations, and opinions.
We've grouped the questions into themes based on when and how they should be used. Whether you're trying to measure overall satisfaction, gather feedback after a specific interaction, or explore qualitative data in depth, these questions will cover your needs.
Customer Satisfaction Survey Questions
On a scale from 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with our product/service?
What did you like most about your experience with us?
What could we do to improve your experience?
How would you rate your overall satisfaction with our customer support team?
What made you choose our company over a competitor?
How likely are you to recommend our service to a friend or colleague?
Did our product/service meet your expectations? Why or why not?
How well did we solve your problem or address your needs?
Was the service you received today timely and efficient?
On a scale from 1 to 10, how easy was it to find the information you were looking for on our website?
After a Transaction or Service Experience
How would you rate your experience with our customer support representative today?
Were your concerns resolved during this interaction?
How likely are you to return as a customer based on this interaction?
How would you rate the ease of completing your transaction today?
What was the most frustrating part of your experience with us?
Did our team answer your questions in a clear and understandable way?
How could we have made your transaction easier or more enjoyable?
How likely are you to use our service again in the future?
Did you feel valued as a customer during your transaction?
Was the level of support you received today what you expected?
Quantitative Questions for Measuring Customer Feedback
How likely are you to recommend our product/service to others? (NPS)
How would you rate your experience with us on a scale from 1 to 5?
How likely are you to continue using our services based on today’s experience? (CES)
How satisfied are you with the quality of our product/service? (CSAT)
What is your overall rating of our customer service team on a scale from 1 to 10?
Did you experience any issues with the quality of our product/service? (Yes/No)
How would you rate your interaction with our customer support team?
How frequently do you use our product/service?
How likely are you to upgrade or purchase additional services from us in the future?
How satisfied are you with the value for money of our product/service?
Qualitative, Open-Ended Survey Questions
What could we do to improve your overall experience with our company?
What do you think is the most important thing we should focus on improving?
What made you choose us over a competitor, and how could we improve in that area?
How would you describe the impact our product/service has had on your daily work/life?
What aspect of our service do you find most valuable, and why?
What’s the one thing we could do to make your experience with us better?
What feature would you like to see added to our product/service?
Can you describe a recent experience where we exceeded your expectations?
What’s the biggest challenge you faced when using our product/service?
How does our product/service compare to your previous experiences with other companies?
Industry-Specific Questions
For retail: How satisfied are you with the variety of products we offer?
For SaaS: How would you rate the user-friendliness of our software platform?
For healthcare: How satisfied are you with the quality of care provided during your visit?
For e-commerce: How easy was it to complete your purchase on our website?
For hospitality: How satisfied are you with the quality of service provided by our staff?
For financial services: How would you rate the trustworthiness of our services?
For education: How helpful have our educational resources been in your learning experience?
For travel: How would you rate the booking process on our website?
For telecommunications: How would you rate the reliability of our service over the last month?
For food and beverage: How satisfied are you with the freshness and quality of our products?
Feedback for Continuous Improvement
What specific areas could we improve in our service/product?
What’s the one thing we’re doing right that keeps you coming back?
If you could change one thing about our product/service, what would it be?
How can we make your experience with us more convenient?
How do we compare to other companies you’ve done business with?
While not exhaustive, this list of customer survey questions is designed to help you gather a range of insights – from general customer satisfaction to in-depth feedback about specific touchpoints and experiences. Tailor these questions to your needs, and you can uncover valuable data that helps drive strategic decision-making.
Crafting Effective Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Crafting effective customer satisfaction surveys is crucial for gathering accurate and actionable feedback from customers. Well-designed surveys can provide valuable insights into customer experiences, preferences, and areas for improvement. Here are some best practices for creating surveys that yield meaningful results:
Best Practices for Creating Surveys
Keep it short and sweet: Aim to keep the survey as concise as possible to avoid frustrating respondents. A shorter survey is more likely to be completed, providing you with more data to analyze.
Ask clear and concise questions: Ensure that questions are easy to understand and free from jargon. Avoid leading questions that may influence respondents’ answers.
Use multiple-choice questions: Multiple-choice questions can help to gather quantitative data and make analysis easier. They provide clear options for respondents, making it simpler to identify trends and patterns.
Use open-ended questions: Open-ended questions can help to gather qualitative data and provide more nuanced feedback. They allow customers to express their thoughts in their own words, offering deeper insights into their experiences and motivations.
Avoid biased questions: Ensure that questions are neutral and do not lead respondents towards a particular answer. Biased questions can skew results and provide inaccurate data.
Test the survey: Before sending the survey to customers, test it with a small group to ensure that it is effective and easy to understand. This can help identify any issues or areas for improvement.
Use a survey tool: Utilize a survey tool to make it easy to create, distribute, and analyze the survey. Tools like SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, and Typeform offer user-friendly interfaces and powerful analytics features.
Make it mobile-friendly: Ensure that the survey is mobile-friendly to make it easy for respondents to complete on their mobile devices. A mobile-friendly survey can increase response rates and provide more comprehensive data.
Use incentives: Consider offering incentives to respondents to encourage them to complete the survey. Incentives can include discounts, gift cards, or entry into a prize draw.
Follow up: After collecting responses, follow up with respondents to thank them for their feedback and to provide updates on any changes made as a result of their feedback. This shows customers that their opinions are valued and can help build loyalty.
