Customer satisfaction should be at the heart of any business, and it is especially relevant today. In today’s markets, customers have unprecedented access to products and services through the internet. Also, the threat of losing customers from a poor product or customer support experience remains high. In a recent survey from HubSpot, 80% of respondents indicated that they would consider ending business with a company from a single negative customer experience.
One way to ensure that you understand customer satisfaction with your company and products is through the use of surveys. Customer satisfaction surveys can take on several different forms and structures based on each unique business. A few of the popular survey methods use a variety of questions to develop overall customer satisfaction metrics such as a Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), or a Net Promoter Score (NPS). Once you've chosen the critical points during the purchasing cycle when you'll survey customers, you can craft a specific goal for each one. Here are 50 of the best survey questions that we could find to help you build useful customer satisfaction surveys.
Product & Usage Survey Questions
Support & Warranty Survey Questions
Customer Satisfaction Survey Questions
Customer Experience Survey Questions
Marketing & Competition Survey Questions
Demographic Survey Questions
1. How old are you? Collecting the age of your survey participants is one of the most important demographic questions you can ask. It is best to present this question as a multiple-choice option, offering various age range options based on your desired market segmentation and ideal customer profile. Knowing the age of your respondents also gives you an indirect assessment of their knowledge and level of experience. This is the first question asked in many surveys.
2. What is your ethnicity? While this is always a sensitive topic and one that you should treat carefully, it is sometimes necessary to seek an understanding of the ethnic breakdown for your customer base. It is usually best to allow each person to select multiple answers from among a checkbox-type list. Another tip is to provide a selection that says “prefer not to answer” to allow respondents to skip the question if they desire.
3. What is your gender? As with other demographic questions like age and ethnicity, asking for gender information from your respondents should be handled with care. Rather than including this question by default, it's a good practice to think through whether or not you really need this information for your customer satisfaction study. For small sample sizes, you can simply include a box for each person to type their response. When you need to poll larger groups, it's best to provide a drop-down or multiple-choice list that includes options for non-binary, a preference to self-describe, and the ability to opt-out of the question.
4. Where do you live? There are a few different ways that you can ask about the region or specific area in which your customers live. One option is to simply allow a multiple-choice selection of the major regions of the United States or other countries in which you are focusing your research. If your study is focused on a particular state, you could allow selections that represent a particular town or city. When it comes to the geographic location, it's an opportunity to segment your customer base with a narrow or broad focus, based on the scope of your study.
5. What is your employment status? This question can help you narrow down a more specific picture of your customer’s socio-economic status. It is a good idea to present a list that includes options for part-time work, self-employment, retired individuals, and those that may be disabled and not able to work current. How you segment these employment selections should match your customer segmentation and understanding of your ideal customer profile based on the provided products or services.
6. What is your marital status, and do you have children? The household composition of your respondents is an essential demographic data point because it can be highly influential on spending habits. There are several different questions that can be asked, including marital status and number of children. You may also receive different answers from those who are married and those who are divorced, and this question can help you understand those differences when you review the data.
7. What is your annual household income? Income levels can tell you a lot about how a person or family may prioritize their spending habits. It is often best to allow multiple selections for income levels that you present as tiers based on your research requirements. Think carefully about how many answer choices you offer and what income ranges you choose to make the final data as meaningful as possible.
8. What level of expertise do you have in ___? It's easy to ask your basic demographic questions and then move on to other topics. However, doing so means you're missing an opportunity to take a closer look at your ideal customer profile. A question that asks some information about the customers’ level of expertise related to the product or service you are selling provides useful data. You may be able to tailor content and product information accordingly to give the best possible reading experience.
Product & Usage Survey Questions
9. Which of the following words would you use to describe our product? A question that encourages your customer to describe your product can help you identify positive or negative traits. The answers will help you understand how well you are communicating your value proposition and whether or not customers are resonating with your message. You can present this question as a multiple-choice list, if you are interested in prioritizing known keywords, or you can simply make it an open-ended variation to collect any feedback.
10. How happy are you with the product? Asking a question about your customers' overall satisfaction with a product or service is a good way to collect data at various milestones in the purchasing cycle. For example, you could ask this question just after purchase, after a set number of weeks or months, or after an exchange or other service event. Measuring satisfaction at various points throughout the cycle reveals changes to customer satisfaction over time. It's often presented as a multiple choice question with a range of scores, such as 1-5.
11. What is your favorite feature of the product or service? One of the best ways to use customer feedback is to make improvements to future products. This question will help you identify what your customers consider as the most valuable feature, and you can use this data to check against your current value proposition or product roadmap. Ensuring that the most valued features are well supported, and part of your core product roadmap is vital for future success.
12. What are three important features that we are missing? This question is particularly important for software companies, as their products often have numerous features that compete directly against other offerings. Since most customers will tend to focus on only a few features, this question can help you identify those features that they desire. It helps you understand how your customer interacts with your product and also determine which new features you should prioritize in your product roadmap.
13. How many ___ do you own? This is a product ownership question that can help you understand the customer's commitment to a particular product type. It is usually presented as a multiple-choice list and is meant to measure a quantity. When combined with other product questions, it can help identify a clear picture of the distribution and saturation of products among your customer base.
14. Please type a review of the product in the space below? This type of question is presented as an open-ended text box with a typical limit of about 10 text lines or 500 characters. It's an ideal question to use when you seek to get a personal description of the product from the customer’s perspective and give them the complete flexibility to use their own words. Using a question like this can help you capture feedback that may be missed from multiple-choice questions.
15. Does the product help you achieve your goals? Asking a question that is targeted at the customer’s perspective can help you gain insights into their true opinion of the product effectiveness. It's especially helpful for marketing or product teams who can use these answers to study how well a product's features and supporting information meet customer needs.
16. What products are we not carrying that you would like to see? This is a great information gathering question to identify potential new products. Certain businesses, such as software companies, may prefer to focus on features rather than new product development. For any retail company or business that sells physical products, this question can help you define related offerings that are valued by your core audience.
17. How likely are you to recommend the product to a friend or colleague? This question is often presented with a rating scale of 1-5 or 0-10 and can be used to determine a net promoter score (NPS) during data analysis. Once collected, this information will tell you how many of your customers actively promote your product versus those who could be considered detractors.
18. Based on your experience with the product, would you buy it again? Often used for direct feedback on a product or service, this question helps connect the customer's current experience with the product to a future purchase. It is an indicator of brand loyalty and measures the level of commitment to this product line from your customer. It is always best for this data to indicate a desire to purchase again. It's another important metric for assessing the impact your customer experience efforts are making on brand loyalty.
Support & Warranty Survey Questions
19. How would you rate the quality of service? This is a core question used on many surveys to assess the performance of the service department within a company. It is usually presented as a scale and can be combined with additional questions about the service representatives to provide an overall picture of service quality. When measuring customer satisfaction, you should always include some questions related to customer service, and this is a useful overall rating question to get you started.
20. Are you happy with your shipping options? Shipping speed and reliability are becoming very competitive these days, so it's a good idea to confirm your customer’s level of satisfaction with shipping. This question will help you identify any dissatisfaction with the options that you provide in addition to pointing out any major shipping issues if the scores are very low. It is typically presented as a scale during a customer satisfaction survey.
21. How satisfied were you with the amount of time it took to resolve your issue? One of the best ways to use survey data to improve customer support is by identifying training opportunities. The timeliness and quality of your team’s responses to customer support requests are both important. This particular question focuses on the amount of time to resolve the customer issue. It can help you understand any gap between your team's capabilities and your customers' expectations.
22. Do you feel like customer support representatives acted in your best interest? This could be considered a somewhat indirect question since it does not point to any particular aspect of customer support. However, a question like this can give you a great understanding of your team’s ability to adapt to each conversation and provide personalized service. If your support team uses scripts that are too rigid, your customers may feel like they were not heard or involved in the resolution process. It's an elevated version of the standard question about satisfaction with service activities.
23. Was the customer service agent knowledgeable? Another fundamental question for customer satisfaction surveys, the data collected regarding service agent knowledge can also help you plan training activities for customer support representatives. It can be presented as a rating scale, yes/no, or even with a write-in box to capture comments. If customers feel that a customer service representative does not know enough about an issue to help them, it is almost certain to lead to dissatisfaction.
24. Based on the service you received, how likely are you to recommend this product to others? Since this question ties together a customer’s current service experience with the potential for a recommendation, it can be quite powerful. Making a personal recommendation to close friends and family is often one of the most valuable forms of feedback consumers use to make purchasing decisions. Therefore, positive responses to this question will tell you if your service activities are successful and likely to lead to repeat business and new customers from referrals.
25. Do you have a clear understanding of how to resolve a warranty issue? Extending warranties to your customers demonstrates trust and gives them confidence that they are buying a quality product. Asking a question such as this one will help confirm if your warranty offering is clear and well understood. It can help identify any issues that may require clarification, ensuring that the process for resolving warranty-related issues runs smoothly.
26. Before connecting with a customer representative, did you attempt any other channels? Including some channel-specific questions in your customer satisfaction survey is helpful because it can give you a good understanding of the popularity of particular channels versus others. You may find that some channels are not utilized at all. Other channels may be utilized, but your team is not able to process their requests, prompting a phone call. In any case, it can help direct your customer support improvement activities among communication channels.
Customer Satisfaction Survey Questions
27. How would you rate the value for money of the product? This is another popular customer satisfaction survey question because it asks the customer to consider the actual value they received from a product versus its cost. It's helpful when assessing the pricing of your product, and the feedback can help determine if customers think your offering is too expensive. It's best presented as a range of values such as 1-5 or 1-10. It's an excellent question to ask after a customer has had some time to use the product.
28. Kindly share a few things we could do better? Including at least one or two open-ended questions like this in your survey can help you collect some great feedback directly from the customer’s perspective. It also gives those that desire the opportunity to share more details about a particular issue they experienced that you may otherwise not have known. These can be helpful specifics your team can use to identify areas of improvement that should be addressed.
29. How does our product/service make you feel? By specifically asking for feelings, this question often yields answers that get at the heart of how a customer feels about your product or service. It is another helpful, open-ended question to consider adding to your customer satisfaction survey. While the answers can sometimes lack specific details, you may capture some surprising insights. At the very least, you'll be able to review some specific language that your customers are using to describe your offering.
30. How satisfied are you with the purchase experience? This question helps take the customer deeper into the actual purchasing process and how they felt about the overall experience. It is usually presented as a rating, and you can combine it with other questions to understand how important the purchase process is to the overall value proposition of your brand. For example, if a customer had a poor purchasing experience but would make a repeat purchase, it may mean that your purchasing process is not perfect but may be sufficient at the current time.
31. Do you identify as a loyal customer of our brand? Loyal customers are some of the most valuable assets that a successful business can have. By simply asking about this during your survey, you can get a quick assessment of how many respondents consider themselves to be loyal customers. It's also helpful when reviewing other answers as you can understand which aspects of your service and customer experience that your most valued customers appreciate the most.
32. What would you say to someone who asked about us? This open-ended question is meant to identify some details about a customer’s overall perception of your brand. Answers may describe your product, services, or your company in general. The main reason for asking this question is to collect responses that are in your customer’s own words and to hear what they choose to focus on. It is a great check against your thoughts regarding your brand image and what your audience actually notices most.
33. How likely are you to buy from us again? Repeat purchases are the hallmark of a successful business and a great indication that you are connecting with customers and offering them exceptional value. By presenting this question in a scaled format, you can graph your results and see the degree to which customers feel they would consider buying from your company again. It's also a good idea to include a follow-up question with an open-text format to capture an explanation for why they feel this way.
Customer Experience Survey Questions
34. How easy was it to navigate our website? A business’s web presence is such a vital part of the customer experience today that it's wise to focus some of your survey questions on the topic. This question is an excellent one to ask when you're considering some design changes to your website layout or navigation. It's also a useful question to ask new or potential customers. Prospects and new customers can provide fresh eyes and may notice website design issues that repeat customers may have gotten used to.
35. What can we do to improve your experience with us? This is a helpful open-ended question to ask when assessing your customer experience process. Since you want to make the entire experience as easy as possible, the answers you collect may help you identify particular sticking points or issues. Your customers will be able to answer the question in a way they choose, giving you more detailed feedback. It's also easy to adjust the wording to match your specific style or survey goals.
36. Did the description of our product on the website match what you received? Having a product arrive that does not meet a customer’s expectation is never a good thing. This question will help you understand the effectiveness of your marketing and product support information. Since your customer has already purchased the product, this question helps measure the comprehension of your key features and branding. It can be presented as a scale for quantitative analysis, multiple-choice selections, or as an open-text box depending upon your survey goals.
37. Were you able to find the information you were looking for on our website? It is always best to enable your customers to find the information they desire from your website as quickly as possible. By asking about this on your customer satisfaction survey, you can learn about specific topics that are hard to find or may even be missing. These answers can be helpful when updating your website navigation or addition additional content to your knowledge base. It's a good question to ask with a yes or no selection while also providing an open-text box for filling in details.
38. How does our website compare to other websites you shop from? Asking questions about your competition is a great way to get direct feedback for how you compare. A question like this will allow your respondents to share their ideas for how your website is similar or different from competitive websites. It's best offered as an open-text survey question. You can collect feedback on areas such as pricing, product selection, and website navigation.
39. What do you like least/most about our website? It can be tempting to focus on adding new website content before considering updates to what is already there. By directly asking your customers what parts of the website they like most (or least), you can improve your website development plans. It's best to offer this question as free text so that a customer can not only identify their main points but can also have the opportunity to explain. This is also a helpful question to ask when you are considering any major website or product changes.
40. How would you rate your last experience with us? This is a great question to ask shortly after a customer closes a support request or makes a purchase. It will give you an understanding of their experience and is best presented as a scale so that you may collect a variety of opinions. You could ask a follow-up question so that they can provide details. Be sure to follow up with any customers who may have identified a problem issue.
41. Is our pricing clear to you? Pricing can sometimes be a challenge to present clearly, especially for companies that offer services and software with a variety of options. There may also be subscription packages to consider along with extended warranties or additional product support plans. By asking your customers how they feel about pricing, you can get a simple yes or no answer that will indicate how effective your current pricing communications are. You can then choose to collect additional feedback in cases where there is a negative response.
Marketing & Competition Survey Questions
42. How did you find us? Understanding the channels through which your customers interact with your brand is vital. This is a simple question to ask, but it provides valuable data for activities – such as advertising in physical locations – that may not be easy to track. It can also help you find sources that might be unexpected or particularly valuable for a large portion of your new customers.
43. Compared to our competitors, is our product quality better, worse, or about the same? This customer satisfaction survey question is simple but will give you measurable results. You can present it as a list or as a scale depending upon your survey goals. It's also a good practice to follow up this question with an additional text box so that customers can provide some further explanation. One final tip is to consider adding this question only after your customer has had some time to use the product so that they can make a reasonable comparison.
44. What did you search for on Google that brought you to us? Your company can always perform keyword research to understand which words are most effective for generating clicks but can also be helpful to ask during a survey. It's a simple and straightforward way to get some basic information about important keywords without performing more detailed research. You should present the question as an open-text box to capture specific responses that might differ from what you are expecting.
45. Which other options did you consider before choosing our product? This question focuses on the product rather than the general competition. By asking a question this question with an open-text box, you'll collect answers that may surprise you. Even after conducting competitive analysis, there will always be new options coming to market. You may also identify some adjacent markets that a customer has also considered before settling on your product.
46. Why did you choose our product over others in the market? This is another competitor-based question that is similar to the previous one, except that it makes the customer think about the unique features of your product. It's a helpful way to help identify the most important features that appear as highly differentiated in the market. Knowing as much as you can about how your products, services, and brand compare to the competition will help you remain competitive.
47. Have you seen or heard about us anywhere else? When this question is presented as open text that the customer can fill in, it will allow them to recall all the places where they have noticed your brand. It's also a good complementary question to others that focus on search results, as you are likely to get comments here about physical advertising, word of mouth, and other communication channels. When using a text-based survey question like this, take the time to analyze all responses to get the most valuable insights.
48. Are people in your industry talking about us? This is an especially powerful question to ask when related to B2B and SaaS products and services that rely heavily on industry adoption. You should use open text on the survey for these responses or follow up a yes/no question with a text field for adding additional details. Your customers may share platforms such as platforms, blogs, or events where your company was mentioned. In some cases, you may not have even been aware of this and can follow up for future marketing efforts.
49. What’s the one thing we should never stop doing? This question gets at the heart of a core value proposition. When you ask your customers to tell you the one thing that they feel you should never stop doing, it makes them think about what they truly value in your brand. The responses collected from this question can be used to add clarity to existing marketing efforts or even reprioritize your product development efforts to capitalize on the features that your customers value the most.
50. What are your biggest challenges? Some of the best marketing efforts are the ones that can tell a story and communicate value from the customer’s perspective. Rather than focusing only on your areas of improvement and internal goals, a question like this lets you hear from your customers regarding their challenges. It can help you identify needs that you are not currently serving or even find new ways to think about customer success. By focusing their response on pain points, you can collect some relevant input on ways that you could potentially help them.
