14 survey questions examples for optimal feedback

One of the most important assets that an organization can capitalize on is customer satisfaction. If you are unable to satisfy your customers, everything else you do to grow your business is in vain. To find out how happy your customers are, you need to get your customers to express their honest opinions. An effective way to do this is by analyzing important customer survey questions and carefully planning a survey. In this post we list 14 customer survey question examples to get optimal feedback. 

Frequently asked questions about customer surveys

The benefits of customer surveys

Get valuable customer feedback

Customer satisfaction survey responses provide valuable feedback on any concerns your customers may have. Depending on how you structure your questions, you can determine how satisfied your customers are with your business or leave open-ended questions to provide them with the opportunity to express reasons behind their level of satisfaction and expand upon their answers. The feedback you receive can help to identify opportunities to improve the customer experience. It can also help you to determine what you’re doing right and capitalize on it.

Retain customers

If your customers are satisfied with your customer experience they’re far more likely to stay with your business. However, if your customer survey results indicate that your clients are not happy with the quality of your products or services, they may just jump ship to your competitors. The results from a customer satisfaction survey can alert you to which customers are unhappy and likely to churn. You can reach out to those customers and take steps to mend the relationship to improve your retention rate. 

Helps you understand your customers

It’s the responsibility of every business to understand customers on a holistic level – not based on intuition, but based on their feedback. Measuring customer satisfaction can help you determine whether you meet, fall short of, or surpass customer expectations. Gaining a deeper understanding of your customers drives more informed decision making to improve the customer experience.

Types of surveys

While surveys are great for collecting feedback, there’s no one-size-fits-all survey that can be used for all situations. Depending on the stage in the buyer’s lifecycle, companies use different types of surveys to capture different types of feedback. 

The most common types of surveys used by companies are: 

Product surveys help companies learn what their users think about their products. Running a survey before launching a product helps you see what people really want and need. Product surveys for an existing product allows you to see how customers are enjoying their experience and how the product can be improved.

Customer Experience (CX) surveys help with collecting constructive feedback about their experience from customers at different touchpoints. Different types of CX surveys are Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT), Net Promoter Score Survey (NPS), Customer Effort Score(CES)

Brand and Marketing surveys allow you to articulate your brand positioning, then develop further messaging that resonates with your future customers.

The questions you craft for each type of customer survey are crucial to getting a strong response rate. Let’s take a look at 14 customer survey question examples that can help you get the meaningful information you want.

Product survey questions examples

Question 1: Does our product help you achieve your goals?

Knowing this informs you whether your product is hitting or missing the mark and indicates if improvements need to be made. Your customers’ responses will give you clear insight into how your products are being received by consumers. This question can also be structured as an open ended question to understand the reasoning behind their response.

Question 2: What would you improve in the product/service if you could?

Customers’ needs are constantly evolving, therefore there’s always room to improve your product. This question will help to keep you informed on how you can update your product. Additionally, actioning changes based on customer feedback will help to strengthen customer relationships and drive brand loyalty.

Question 3: If you could suggest a new feature, what would it be and why?

Regularly offering innovative product updates is highly valued by consumers, and your customers may potentially give unique suggestions that you wouldn’t have otherwise considered. 

Question 4: Which alternatives did you consider before purchasing this product?

Now you may already have a solid understanding of your competition, but it’s good to know exactly what products your customers perceive as your competition.

Sometimes they take into account companies that are not on your radar or new companies you may not be aware of. This insight informs if messaging with prospects and existing customers creates a clear image of your product that is coherent with your own vision.

Customer Experience survey questions examples

Question 5: How was your experience with us today?

This is a common question used to determine the customer satisfaction score (CSAT score). It helps to identify if your business is offering a quality, memorable customer experience. 

To calculate your CSAT score, take the number of satisfied customers and divide it by all of your respondents. Then multiply the result by 100. You’ll end up with a percentage, where the higher it is, the more satisfied your customers are.

Question 6: What could we have improved on/done better?

This is a great follow up question to ask on a CSAT survey. Knowing whether your customers had a good or poor experience with your business helps you understand how you’re doing, but you also need to know what contributed to the quality of their experience. 

If you want to glean the most information from your CX survey, then you’re going to want to look into open-ended questions like these.

It will point out exactly what you’re doing well, and what needs improvement. 

Question 7: How would you explain our product/service to a friend, family member or colleague?

This is another open ended question that can provide insight into how customers perceive your offerings. What they consider to be your value proposition and how it meets their needs. Analyzing responses to this question can inform your marketing messaging and improve customer acquisition. 

Question 8: How likely are you to recommend our business?

This question is the foundation of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) system that gauges the loyalty of a company’s customers. Data scientists have determined a strong connection between Net Promoter Score and revenue growth. You may want to ask this question once per quarter, post purchase. A true NPS uses a 11-point system (0 to 10), but you could simplify yours if you want.

After getting a response, consider having your customer support team follow up with any customers giving you a low score and see if you can turn those detractors into promoters.

Brand and Marketing customer survey questions examples

Question 9: How did you hear about us?

You stretch your budgets to exploit all possible channels in order to get new visitors and then convert them to customers. It is important to learn how your customer learned about you and to identify those channels that bring not just the most traffic, but the traffic makes a purchase.

This will later help you invest your marketing budget in the best channels and get the most benefit from your spend.

Question 10: How would you search for our business on Google?

Identify new keywords and concepts that lead to customer acquisition. If you want future customers to find your business online, you need to know everything you can about the keywords and phrases that your customers use when looking for companies like yours. This is one of the most important aspects of your inbound efforts. Identify common keywords used by your most profitable customers. Combine these inputs with the NPS to customize your inbound SEO strategy and gain an advantage over your competitors.

Question 11: What is the primary reason you chose us over competitors?

Discovering a product or service “differentiator” is the kind of competitive intelligence that pays huge dividends. You may already have some thoughts on this, but set those aside for now and let your customers tell you why you are different.

Question 12: Were you able to easily find the information you were looking for on our website?

Your customers should be able to seamlessly navigate your website to find information. The happier they are with the user experience on your website and the time it takes to get the information they need, the more likely they are to become repeat customers. This question will keep you informed on if your website needs to be updated to provide a better customer experience. 

Question 13: What’s one thing you love about our company?

It’s imperative to understand what your customers love about your company so you can get to know their preferences and build upon your strengths. Is it your awesome customer service or your amazing collection of products or your low prices?

Question 14: Do you have suggestions?

It’s better to be proactive rather than reactive. Take the first step by asking customers to express themselves. This can help you find gaps in your offerings and discover potential advocates.

At the same time, it lets your customers know that you care about their experience and appreciate their ideas on how to make improvements.

Increase your response rate with smart surveys

Asking the right questions is imperative to gleaning valuable customer feedback. Of equal importance is providing an intuitive survey experience. 

We launched Pulse Surveys to innovate the traditional survey experience that boosts conversion rates to a whopping 50%!

• Use text to send your survey – Nothing against email, but texts get much better open and response rates than email. This makes them great at getting real-time feedback. Pulse surveys use 2-way texting, which allows you to have a back and forth conversation with your customer (ask a question – get an answer) without missing a beat. 

• No survey link – ask your question in the Text – Just ask your question in the body of the text – no links! When there are no links to click on, you increase your chances to get a response. 

• It’s simple, start with just one question – there’s a better chance of getting a response to one question than when you send several questions at one time. Once that one question is answered, ask another. 

Furthermore, you can use conditional logic (skip and display logic) to enable your respondents to bypass irrelevant questions based on rules that you have defined. It’s almost like creating a custom path for each respondent through the survey that varies based on respondent’s answers. 

This is an increasingly popular trend with businesses across all industries, 42% of companies include some sort of survey logic to ensure quality data collection while also preventing respondent survey fatigue.

Skip Logic allows you to send respondents to a future point in the survey based on how they answer a question.

Display Logic displays or hides a question based on any information you already have about the current respondent.

Start boosting your survey response rates with Birdeye

The customer survey questions examples we’ve shared with you are meant to inspire your surveys to help get more meaningful insights. With the maturing of the experience economy and an ever-growing number of touchpoints, getting a deeper and holistic understanding of customers is vital to an organization’s success. Fortunately, with a wide range of customer surveys and distribution methods now available, you can empower your VoC program and strengthen your CX strategy. Want to get started collecting feedback and improving your customer experience? Birdeye’s award-winning survey platform can help you achieve your feedback goals and fuel business growth.

Originally published Dec 14, 2022