16 questions for your customer satisfaction survey

Customer satisfaction surveys enable you to get feedback from those who use your products or services. It usually measures a specific experience – like a store visit, a purchase or an interaction with a customer service team member.

Over time, the results of these surveys will build up a picture of how you’re performing and how customers feel about you.

This is key to understanding where you need to improve, what you’re doing well, and what your customer-retention strategies should focus on.

If you’re looking to put together a customer satisfaction survey, we’ve got a set of core questions that cover most of the bases to help you on your way.

Here are some of our top customer satisfaction survey questions.

• NPS: How likely are you to recommend [company or brand] to a friend or colleague?

This question helps you determine your Net Promoter Score.

To calculate your Net Promoter Score, subtract the percentage of detractors (those who are not likely to recommend you) from the number of those who would promote you to a friend or colleague.

If 5% would not recommend you but 80% would, your NPS Score is 7.5 (80 minus 5) based on scoring system of between 0 and 10.

The higher the score, the better you have performed and the more likely customers are to recommend you.

• What’s the main reason for your score?

• We would really like to know what we could do to improve your score, can you tell us?

Not only will this inform you of any glaring issues there might be, but this question gives people the chance to provide small critiques that can make a big difference, which they might not have said without this direct question.

For example, if your delivery time is too long, this will likely be raised by many people. But one customer could also inform you that your payment webpage takes too long to load – which could be losing you a lot of sales as people drop their baskets and exit your website. This issue would not be obvious to you and wouldn’t be known until someone flags it up.

How was the quality of service?

This includes speed, efficiency, and whether there was a satisfactory outcome.

• How do you think about our service staff?

Front-of-house customer service can make or break the customer experience. From a polite hello, thank you and goodbye, to going above and beyond to sort out a problem, a positive interaction with a member of staff goes a long way to ensuring customers are happy.

• Were the staff knowledgeable?

A member of staff could be enthusiastic and eager to help, but if they don’t know the answer to the question, there may be a problem.

• How do you feel about our customer communication?

This can include your marketing emails, delivery updates, or responding to a customer query. Communication should be prompt, relevant and accurate.

• How was the customer service you received?

Customer service includes whether staff members were polite, helpful and knowledgeable, and whether the customer was treated with importance.

• How do you rate the delivery service?

With online shopping becoming so commonplace following the Covid-19 pandemic, delivery is more important than ever. The days of a six-week lead time with delivery from China are long gone. Customers expect next-day for most purchases, and even same-day delivery has become commonplace with Amazon. Customers also expect communication. They want tracking updates and even a delivery ‘window’ on the day. A lack of communication and a long lead time can cause a customer to look elsewhere next time.

• How was the overall value for money?

Although we all love a bargain, most of us are happy to spend a bit more if it means we’re getting a quality product or service. Value for money is vital for keeping a customer coming back.

• What do you think about the price you paid?

For price sensitive shoppers, this is the all important factor.

• How was the purchase experience?

For in-store purchases, this will include the layout and ease of finding items, the helpfulness of staff and the ease of which the transaction took place.

For online purchases, it’s about how responsive your website is, how easy it is to find products and add them to a basket, how smooth the ‘checkout’ process is, and whether a confirmation of purchase is given.

• Were you kept informed you with the progress of your order?

• How was our product knowledge?

From incorrect information on product pages to members of staff who can’t answer questions about the product, a lack of knowledge can cause a customer to lose faith and shop somewhere else.

• Overall, how happy were you with the product/service?

This question may produce some positives that can help you understand what you’re doing well.

• Overall, how happy were you with [your company or brand] ?

This ties into brand experience measurement and brand perception