Customer satisfaction survey: Questions and examples

Our customer satisfaction survey templates can be guides in delivering better value to customers and strengthening your business.

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How to create customer satisfaction surveys with SurveyPlanet?

Know how consumers feel about your company and its services? If not, it’s time to acquire valuable feedback that will lead to product and service improvements. One of the best ways to do this is through customer satisfaction surveys and, thanks to SurveyPlanet, creating one is easier than you might think.

Sign up for an account and explore the possibilities of pre-made customer satisfaction survey templates, question branching, powerful analytics, and easy export.

Customer satisfaction surveys: Getting started

To create a customer feedback survey, determine what types of questions to ask. Want feedback about customer service? Specific products? Pricing? The general experience customers have had? First focusing on the areas where information is sketchy is a good place to start.

For example, if operating an online shop, then ask sensible questions about customer satisfaction with the online shopping experience. Inquire about how they feel about specific products while also getting answers about how the online shop looks and if finding items on it is easy.

Learn more about the top 8 ways to gain insight from your customers to better understand how they really feel about products and services.

The importance of customer satisfaction surveys

By regularly conducting customer satisfaction surveys, businesses can gain insight into customers' needs and expectations. This not only can help you better understand customers but can influence product development, service improvements, and sometimes even strategic direction.

By understanding and addressing customer feedback, companies can create a more positive customer experience, which is critical in a competitive marketplace. Customer surveys can identify customers who are satisfied and dissatisfied, enabling a business to take action to improve retention rates.

Types of customer satisfaction survey

There are four different types of surveys for customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction score: CSAT surveys

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) surveys measure customer satisfaction with a specific product, service, or interaction. The CSAT survey typically consists of a single, straightforward question that customers answer on a numerical scale. The most common CSAT question asks customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale, often ranging from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10.

CSAT question example:

How satisfied are you with [product/service/interaction]?

  1. Very unsatisfied
  2. Unsatisfied
  3. Neutral
  4. Satisfied
  5. Very satisfied

CSAT surveys are brief and easy for customers to complete, increasing response rates. Analyzing CSAT scores helps organizations identify trends, strengths, and weaknesses. The scores are often benchmarked against previous periods, industry standards, or competitors to provide context. CSAT surveys can be conducted regularly to monitor changes in satisfaction and guide continuous improvement efforts.

Customer effort score: CES surveys

CES surveys, or customer effort score surveys, are designed to measure the ease of the customer experience with a company's product or service. Specifically, CES surveys ask customers to rate the effort it took to use the product or service or resolve issues with customer service or support teams.

Unlike the NPS, which focuses on loyalty and overall satisfaction, CES surveys aim to quantify the effort required from the customer's perspective to achieve a specific goal, such as resolving a problem, making a purchase, or getting information.

Net promoter score: NPS surveys

An NPS survey, short for net promoter score survey, is a tool used to gauge the loyalty of a company's customer relationships. It asks respondents to rate on a scale of 0 to 10 how likely they are to recommend a company's products or services to others.

Respondents are categorized into three groups based on their scores:

  • Promoters (score 9-10): Loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and referring others, fueling growth.
  • Passives (score 7-8): Satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
  • Detractors (score 0-6): Unhappy customers who can damage a brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

The NPS score is equal to the percent of detractors (percentage of answers scored at 6 or lower) subtracted from the promoters (percentage of answers scored at 9 or 10). Use this score to track satisfaction over time.

Milestone surveys

These are questionnaires sent during key moments in a customer’s journey that lead to a better understanding of their experience.

Customer satisfaction survey best practices

To get the most out of a customer satisfaction questionnaire, it’s imperative to follow best practices. Not only do you need to determine the best customer satisfaction survey questions, but you must also be aware of other factors that influence the success of conducting a customer service satisfaction survey.

The following tips will ensure that respondents stay engaged with a client satisfaction questionnaire and provide honest feedback.

1. Limit the number of questions in your survey

It’s important to keep a survey focused. If too many questions are asked, respondents will likely get bored halfway through and exit the survey. Try to keep things short and to the point. Read our blog "How Long Should Your Survey Be" and use our survey length estimator to better understand the perfect survey length for your next questionnaire.

2. Use simple language

Don’t use industry jargon that the average person won’t understand. Keep the language at a level that avoids miscommunication. If a customer satisfaction survey is hard to understand, inconclusive answers will result. Respondents can also become frustrated and leave the survey early.

3. Ask what their overall rating is first

To get a respondent’s overall rating, ask that question early. If nitpicky questions are asked first, the overall rating question might be skewed.

4. Send the survey after a customer’s experience

Respondents will answer a customer satisfaction survey more meaningfully when it is sent directly after their purchasing experience. Since their acquisition is fresh, more accurate and meaningful answers will result.

5. Offer an incentive for responding

Getting something for completing a survey will result in more responses. This means better data. Incentives can be a small gift—a sample product, purchase discount, gift card, or entry into a drawing to win a larger prize. The better the incentive, the more people will respond.

Businesses that can benefit from a customer satisfaction survey

Although any type of business can benefit from a customer satisfaction survey, the following four industries get the most bang for their buck. This previous article highlights all the detailed benefits of surveying your customers.

Product manufacturers

Customer satisfaction surveys provide manufacturers with feedback about new and existing products. This feedback can be used to make design changes or get ideas for future products to meet customer needs. Find out how a feedback questionnaire can help your business.

Software manufacturers

Developers are always looking for ways to improve. A well-written customer satisfaction survey can provide new feature ideas and improvements to software that existing customers want to see.

Service providers

Those working in the service industry know that the customer is always right. Client satisfaction questionnaires provide insight into what customers actually want, what they don’t like, and what services they would like to see down the line.

Restaurants

Nearly 60 percent of new restaurants fail within their first year. By asking the right customer satisfaction survey questions, restaurant managers can better gauge customer needs and implement necessary changes to ensure their clientele keeps coming back.

Read our blog "Tips to Help Business Owners Increase Their Survey Response Rate" about ways to better understand both customers and employees.

Using data gathered from customer satisfaction research

Well-conducted customer satisfaction surveys help businesses retain patrons and examine overall customer loyalty. The main purpose of conducting a customer satisfaction questionnaire is to collect data about experiences, use it to improve the business, and show customers you care about their opinions.

A survey will deliver insights into whether customer expectations are being met and gather more information about a target market. It is vital to discover which consumers are happy and which are not.

Additionally, data collected through a survey can help better ascertain broad trends in the marketplace.

For example, respondents might indicate they’re most satisfied with a certain product or have good experiences with a specific customer service representative. Fully comprehending answers from a survey—individually and collectively—can help managers develop useful insights that will improve business operations.

Need assistance with analyzing gathered data?

We got you covered! Read the "Ultimate Guide To Survey Data Collection" to better understand everything about methods, examples, and analysis of survey data.

Customer satisfaction survey question examples

to better understand everything about methods, examples, and analysis of survey data.

To get started, here are customer satisfaction survey examples that will help determine the types of questions to ask:

Overall customer satisfaction survey questions examples:

  1. How satisfied are you with your overall experience with our company?
  2. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of our product/service?
  3. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well does our service meet your needs?
  4. Which of the following words would you use to describe our product/service?
  5. How likely is it that you would purchase something from us again?
  6. How can we improve your experience in the future?
  7. What would persuade you to shop from us more often?

Product or service-specific customer satisfaction questions examples:

  1. How would you rate the performance of the product you purchased?
  2. What products are you most interested in?
  3. How reliable do you find our product?
  4. Do you have any suggestions as to how we can improve our website?
  5. How do you rate the value for money of our product/service?
  6. How satisfied are you with the features and functions of our product?
  7. What types of features would you like to see in future products?
  8. How did you find us?
  9. What competitors did you consider before choosing us?
  10. How do our prices compare to our competitors?
  11. How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?

Customer service satisfaction survey questions:

  1. On a scale of 1 to 10, when having a problem with our product, how helpful was our customer support?
  2. Did our customer support team communicate clearly and understandably?
  3. How quickly did our customer service team resolve your issue?
  4. How many times did you have to contact customer service before your issue was resolved?
  5. How comprehensive was the information provided by our customer support team?

Finally, even though yes/no questions and Likert-scale questions are quicker and easier to answer, open-ended customer satisfaction questions can be very valuable. By letting customers express opinions and feelings in their own words—and give suggestions—more valuable information can be garnered that can be used to your advantage.

Find the right customer satisfaction survey template with SurveyPlanet

To access more customer survey examples or explore complete customer satisfaction survey templates, visit SurveyPlanet. We have a wealth of pre-made surveys and pre-written sample customer satisfaction survey questions to choose from. Log in to your account or sign up for a free account to start creating customer satisfaction surveys today.

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