How to build the right feedback questionnaire for your next customer survey (62 examples and tips)

We all know that customers are the lifeblood of any business. They use your product or service, engage with your brand, and (hopefully!) champion you to others.

So, who better to offer insights into how your product or service could improve? Be it understanding what their needs will be tomorrow or identifying existing pain points and bottlenecks — your customers can help you with all of it.

This is where customer feedback questionnaires step into the picture. With the right questions on your next survey, you can make an informed decision about how to improve your product or service.

Before we look at some examples, let’s understand what makes the questions right for your feedback questionnaire:

Table of Contents

• Tips to pick the right questions for your customer feedback questionnaire
• Questions For Customer Feedback Questionnaire
  • Customer Feedback Questions on Product Usage
  • Customer Feedback Questions on Demographic
  • Customer Feedback Questions on Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
  • Open-ended questions for customer feedback questionnaires
  • Customer Feedback Questions to Improve Your Marketing Campaigns
• Conclusion

Tips to pick the right questions for your customer feedback questionnaire

Selecting the right questions for your customer survey is of utmost importance. But what makes the “right questions”? There’s a lot that goes behind the scenes when you are looking to create an effective feedback questionnaire.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when you are picking questions that go into your upcoming customer feedback questionnaire:

1. Define Clear Objectives: Start with understanding what you truly want to achieve with the feedback. Whether it’s improving a product, gauging customer satisfaction with your service, or assessing a new feature’s reception, have a clear goal in mind.
   
2. Ensure Relevance to Respondents: Questions should be directly relevant to the respondent’s experience. Irrelevant questions can disengage participants and reduce the accuracy and reliability of the responses.
   
3. Prioritize Open-Ended Questions: These provide respondents with the freedom to voice their opinions, capturing more detailed and nuanced feedback. They can offer unexpected insights that close-ended questions might miss.
   
4. Avoid Leading or Biased Questions: Ensure your phrasing doesn’t guide respondents to a particular answer. Neutral wording is the key to obtaining genuine, unbiased feedback.
   
   For instance, a question like “How great is our product?” is clearly a leading question, already suggesting your product is great. Instead, go for a question like “How helpful do you find our product on a scale of 1-10?”.
   
5. Limit the Number of Questions: Keep your questionnaire concise to maintain engagement. Overwhelming respondents with too many questions can result in drop-offs or hasty, less-thoughtful answers. While there is no “perfect” limit for a questionnaire, 5-10 questions are generally a good length for one.
   
6. Balance Scales Consistently: If using Likert scales or rating scales, keep the range consistent throughout the questionnaire (e.g., always 1-5). This prevents confusion and maintains a consistent metric of measurement.
   
7. Test and Refine: Pilot your questionnaire with a smaller group first. Use their feedback to refine questions, ensuring clarity and removing potential ambiguities. You can also try A/B testing your questionnaires and see which questions are working better with your customers.
   
8. Categorize Questions: Group similar questions together to make the questionnaire flow logically. This can help the respondent move seamlessly from one section to the next.
   
9. Include Demographics Where Relevant: This helps segment feedback and understand if different groups have varying needs or perceptions, but ensure these questions are optional to respect privacy.
   
10. Encourage Honest Feedback: Set the tone at the beginning, assuring respondents that constructive criticism is welcomed and valued. This can help in obtaining more candid and valuable responses.
    
    Starting your survey with a small message like “We appreciate and aim to work on your honest feedback on our product…” shows your respondents that their input is welcomed.

Questions For Customer Feedback Questionnaire

Now that we know how to pick the right questions for your feedback questionnaire, let’s take a look at some questions that you can use in your next survey, depending on your use case:

Customer Feedback Questions on Product Usage

By asking about product usage, you gain insights into how frequently and in what ways customers use your product. This can help in mapping out the typical user journey and spotting potential opportunities, pitfalls, and new features that can be useful. 

Here are some examples:

1. How often do you use our product/service?
2. What is the primary goal you want to achieve with our product/service?
3. Which features do you use the most?
4. Are there features you rarely or never use?
5. How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?
6. Was our product easy to set up and start using?
7. Does our product help you achieve your goals?
8. How does our product compare to similar products/services you’ve used?
9. Are there any features we could add to improve your experience?
10. How intuitive is our product’s interface?
11. Have you ever experienced issues or bugs while using our product?

Customer Feedback Questions on Demographic

Understanding the demographics of your respondents allows for more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns and product recommendations.

Demographic questions can also help you identify if you’re effectively reaching your target market or if there are untapped segments showing interest in your product or service.

Here are some demographic questions to add to your next feedback questionnaire:

12. What is your age group?
13. What’s your professional background?
14. Which region/country are you from?
15. What’s your preferred method of communication?
16. How did you hear about our product/service?
17. What’s your educational background?
18. Are you using our product for personal or professional purposes?
19. What device do you mostly use our product on? (Desktop, mobile, etc.)
20. Which other products/services in our category do you use or have used?

Customer Feedback Questions on Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

Knowing how satisfied your customers are with your product or service is extremely important. It helps you understand which customers are likely to churn, what are the customer expectations, and areas that need improvement.

Once you know this, you can take these insights and turn them into actionable strategies that will truly be effective.

If you are looking for a solution to gauge customer satisfaction (CSAT) while also managing all your customer service operations — try Hiver.

With Hiver, you can insert personalized, custom feedback forms into customer emails with just a click and measure customer satisfaction proactively.

If you are scratching your head for some customer satisfaction questions for your feedback questionnaire, here are some to try:

21. How would you rate your overall satisfaction with our product/service?
22. On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?
23. Were your expectations met, unmet, or exceeded with the product/service you received?
24. How would you rate our product/service on value for money?
25. How easy was it to use our product/service?
26. How would you rate our customer service/support?
27. What did you like most about our product/service?
28. What improvements would you suggest for our product/service?
29. How often do you use our product/service?
30. Compared to similar products/services you’ve tried, how does ours rank?
31. How easy was it to find the information you were looking for on our website?
32. How satisfied are you with the speed and efficiency of our service delivery?
33. Did our product/service help you achieve your goals?
34. How would you rate the onboarding process when you first started using our product/service?
35. Were all your questions or concerns addressed promptly and adequately?
36. How likely are you to purchase from us again in the future?
37. How satisfied are you with the features and functionalities of our product/service?
38. How likely are you to try other products/services we offer?
39. Did our product/service perform as you expected it would?
40. How do you feel about the frequency and relevance of our communications (e.g., emails, newsletters)?

Looking for CSAT survey templates? Check out these samples and bonus questions.

Open-ended questions for customer feedback questionnaires

Open-ended questions are invaluable in customer feedback questionnaires because they allow customers to express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences in their own words. This kind of feedback often reveals deep insights, providing a more holistic understanding of user satisfaction and areas of improvement.

But asking too many open-ended questions can overwhelm your customers. Only ask open-ended questions when you need some information in detail, and most other questions in the questionnaire are light – like MCQs or rating questions.

Here are some open-ended questions to try in your feedback questionnaire:

41. What was your primary goal in using our product/service, and did it meet your expectations?
42. Can you describe any challenges or obstacles you faced using our product/service?
43. What do you like most about our product/service?
44. Are there any features or aspects you feel could be improved?
45. How would you describe your experience with our customer support team?
46. What made you choose our product/service over competitors?
47. How has our product/service impacted your daily routine or business operations?
48. What additional features or services would you like to see in the future?
49. Can you share any specific experiences, either positive or negative, that stood out during your interactions with our brand?
50. If you could change one thing about our product/service, what would it be?
51. How do you envision using our product/service in the next year?

Customer Feedback Questions to Improve Your Marketing Campaigns

We’re sure your marketing team would be regularly creating campaigns around your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Understanding what your customers want from your brand can help them create more valuable campaigns that would be more engaging for your target audience.

By asking the right questions, you can gain insights into which campaigns will work for your target prospective customers, improving your marketing efforts.

Here are some questions that can help you improve your marketing efforts:

52. How did you first learn about our product/service?
53. Which of our marketing campaigns or advertisements do you remember most vividly?
54. On a scale of 1-10, how relevant do you find our marketing content to your interests and needs?
55. Are there certain types of content that you would like to see more of from us?
56. Which social media platform do you use most frequently to stay updated with our brand?
57. Do you find our email newsletters helpful and informative?
58. What feedback or suggestions do you have for our website design and user experience?
59. Are there any competitors’ marketing campaigns or strategies that have caught your attention?
60. Which keywords or search terms did you use (if any) when you found our product/service online?
61. How likely are you to engage with or share our content with your peers?
62. Are there specific topics or issues you would like us to address in our future marketing materials?

Conclusion

Crafting the ideal feedback questionnaire is both an art and a science. By understanding your target audience, aligning questions with your goals, and employing the tips and examples provided, you set yourself on the path to obtaining actionable insights. Remember, feedback is a bridge between you and your customers. 

Constructing your feedback questionnaire well ensures not just an exchange of information but a way to gain insights into your customers accurately. As you evolve and adapt, so should your questionnaires. Never stop refining, and always keep your ear to the ground. Your customers are talking; make sure you’re asking the right questions to hear them truly.