50 business survey questions to ask your customers

How can you know if your customers are happy with your products and services and plan to continue purchasing? All you have to do is ask!

Customer surveys are a great way to gather insights that will help you make decisions about the future of your company. In fact, surveying seems to have a positive relationship with organizational growth. 

One Gartner study found that 80 percent of companies that have experienced positive revenue growth actively conduct customer surveys. In contrast, only 58 percent of companies with unchanged or declining revenue do the same. If you’d prefer to be counted among the growth organizations, using surveys to ask your customers for feedback should be a top priority!

The questions you ask will depend on the survey’s purpose. Do you want to research a potential new market or solicit customer feedback? Or maybe you want to measure brand awareness or understand the competitor landscape.

Whatever your goal, keep reading to learn which business survey questions to ask in order to get more meaningful insights. We provide 50 different questions you can use as inspiration. But first, let’s look at how to set goals for your business survey so you can get the type of feedback that will be most helpful.

Goals for business survey questions

“Surveys are an easy and non-intrusive way to get business data that would otherwise be impossible to get,” says Harrison Tanner Baron, CEO and founder of Growth Generators, a digital marketing agency.

When drafting your questions, it’s important to have a clear objective in mind: What does your organization want to achieve by asking these questions? This will help you determine what types of questions to ask, the order in which to ask them, and whom to ask.

Here are some of the most common business survey goals:

• Learn more about the target audience. Market research surveys that ask questions related to demographics and customer needs help businesses learn more about their customer base and what they want in terms of products and services.

• Get insight on a specific product or service. A company that’s releasing a new product or service may launch it for a small audience first and survey their responses to see what can be improved before releasing it into the wider market.
• Improve customer service. How an organization treats its customers determines whether they choose to come back or not. Business survey questions that seek to understand a customer’s experience can help organizations improve their service processes.
• Understand their competitive position. Questions around brand recognition help the company see how customers perceive it in the wider market. This can impact branding strategies and marketing approaches.

“Feedback from customers is worth its weight in gold,” says Baron. “Big box stores have surveys on the bottom of their receipts, and online companies automate surveys. The data can help drive more sales, but, more importantly, it can be used to improve the overall customer experience.”

Examples of business survey questions

Baron notes that some companies may think customer surveys are a bit invasive. “However, most people are happy to participate for a chance to win a gift card or store credit,” he notes.

“The main drawback of customer surveys is that sometimes customers can give feedback that may be hard for businesses to stomach,” says Baron. It’s important to be open to all kinds of responses — both positive and negative — when conducting customer surveys.

Market research questions

These types of questions help organizations make decisions about the future direction of their company, such as markets to target or products to develop.

• What is your most pressing daily challenge?
• If you had an ideal solution to this problem, what would it look like?
• Are you more likely to fix the problem yourself or hire someone to do it for you?
• How likely are you to purchase this product?
• What do you value most in a product: affordability, quality, or the time it saves?

Product feedback questions

Questions like these produce valuable insight into how consumers view a product and where it could use some improvements. They can also help businesses project future sales.

• What surprised you about this product?
• Does this product live up to your expectations?
• How likely are you to recommend this product to a friend?
• What do you like least about using this product?
• If you could change anything about this product, what would it be?

Customer service feedback questions

These questions are important because they aid in customer retention efforts and enable businesses to fine-tune their customer service processes.

• How would you rate your experience at our store today?
• How likely are you to return to our e-commerce store?
• Will you recommend our business to a friend?
• Did the customer service representative resolve your issue effectively?
• If you could change anything about your experience today, what would it be?

Brand recognition questions

Organizations ask these questions to see where they stand in the industry, how they can improve their image, and how they can become more memorable.

• Which company is the leader in this industry?
• What is the most memorable marketing campaign you’ve seen in this industry?
• Why would you choose a certain business over another in this industry?
• Do you view our organization as an expert in this industry?
• What is more valuable to you when choosing a business: name recognition or price point?

Customer story questions

These questions are a great way to learn more about how your organization’s product or service impacts customers’ lives. Use the answers to create case studies for your marketing materials.

• What was the main pain point you were experiencing before using our product?
• What other solutions have you tried? Why did they not work for you?
• How did our product relieve your pain point?
• Do you have any numerical data points to share that show how our product improved things for you?
• In what ways did our product exceed your expectations?

Lead capture business survey questions

If your organization uses lead capture forms on your website or with gated content, be sure to include these questions to capture valuable data.

• What is your name?
• What is your job title?
• What is your email address?
• What is your phone number?
• What is the main reason for contacting us?

Customer effort questions

In order to increase revenue, it’s important to remove any barriers your customers have to making a purchase. Ask these types of questions to determine how much effort customers have to exert when interacting with your business.

• How easy was it to find product information on our website?
• How easy was it to complete a transaction with our company?
• If you could improve our payment process, what would you change?
• How easy was it to resolve your issue with our customer service team?
• What can we do to make the purchasing process easier for you?

Customer issue questions

No business is perfect, so  it’s likely that some customers will have issues with your product, service, or processes. What matters is how you resolve those issues. Ask these questions to learn more about your customers’ difficulties.

• Please describe the main problem you had with our product or service.
• If there was one thing you could do to improve our product or service, what would it be?
• Were you satisfied with the level of customer support you received to resolve your issue?
• Do you have any outstanding issues that have not been resolved?
• Did we meet your expectations in resolving your issue?

Competitive analysis questions

Understanding where your business stands among competitors is critical. Ask these questions to determine where you can improve to remain ahead of the competition.

• How would you rate the quality of our products compared to our competitors’ products?
• Which product or service is the best alternative to ours?
• If our product or service wasn’t available, which competitor would you go to instead?
• Why did you choose our product or service instead of a competing one?
• Have you shopped at these competitors before?

Customer retention questions

If customers are considering choosing one of your competitors, you will need to understand why so you can make improvements at your business. Ask these questions to learn more.

• What was the main reason you chose to stop purchasing from our company?
• Is there anything we can do to keep your business?
• What could have made your experience better with us?
• Would you be willing to come back as a customer if we made the changes you requested?
• Would you still like to stay in touch with our business and receive information about our products and services?

Business survey questions with Jotform

Ready to create your own business survey? Baron notes that good business survey questions can help your organization make more money by uncovering what your target audience wants.

Jotform has you covered with thousands of form and survey templates for a wide array of business needs, including tax forms, demographic surveys, job applications, and many more. Each survey template is fully customizable, so you can edit the content, colors, and logos to create an attractive-looking survey that will help you meet your business goals.