Survey questions examples for every research goal

Every useful survey answers one question your team cares about. Write that question down before you write a single item for respondents. "Why do trial users stop after day three?" is a goal. "Learn about our users" is not, because it gives you no way to decide which questions belong and which do not.

Once the goal is clear, pick five to seven questions. Mix one or two closed questions for counting with two or three open questions for reasons. Closed questions tell you how many people feel a certain way. Open questions tell you why, and the why is what you act on.

Keep the order natural. Start with an easy question, move to the core topic, ask the most personal or sensitive item near the end and close with a question that invites anything else the person wants to say.

Use this group after someone has used a feature or your product for a while. It works for product managers, designers and founders who want to know what to build or fix next.

• What were you trying to get done when you last opened the product?
• How easy was it to finish that task, on a scale from 1 to 5?
• What, if anything, slowed you down?
• Which feature do you use most often?
• Which feature did you try once and never use again?
• If you could change one thing about the product, what would it be?
• What would you use instead if this product disappeared tomorrow?

Open version for voice or video answers: "Walk us through the last time you used the product. What were you trying to do, and where did it get harder than you expected?" Spoken answers to this kind of prompt tend to include the steps, the context and the moment of friction, which a one-line text box rarely captures.

Use these after a purchase, a delivery or a support conversation. They fit CX and support leads who track satisfaction over time and need the reason behind each score.

• How satisfied are you with your experience today, from 1 to 5?
• Did we solve the problem you contacted us about?
• How much effort did it take to get your issue handled?
• What could we have done better during this visit or order?
• Was anything confusing about the checkout or delivery?
• How likely are you to buy from us again?

Open version: "Tell us in your own words how this order or support conversation went. What stood out, good or bad?" Pair it with a rating so you can sort answers by score and read the reasons from the lowest scores first. For a full program, see our guide to customer survey questions and the customer satisfaction survey software page.

Send this group a few days after signup or after someone joins a new process. The goal is to catch confusion early, while it is still easy to fix.

• What made you sign up?
• What did you expect to be able to do in your first week?
• Have you been able to do it yet?
• Which step of the setup took the longest?
• Was there a moment when you nearly gave up?
• What would have made getting started easier?

Open version: "Describe your first few days with us. What was clear, and where did you have to guess?"

Pricing questions work best with people who already know the product: active customers, recent buyers and people who chose a competitor. Ask about value before you ask about price.

• What problem does this product solve for you?
• How would you describe the value you get to a colleague?
• Which plan are you on, and why did you choose it?
• At what point did the price feel like a barrier, if ever?
• What would make a higher plan worth it to you?
• Who else was involved in the decision to buy?

Open version: "When you compared options, what made you choose us, and what nearly made you choose something else?"

Use these within a day of a webinar, workshop, conference or internal training, while memories are fresh.

• How would you rate the event overall, from 1 to 5?
• Which session or part was most useful to you?
• What will you do differently after this event?
• Was the length right, too long or too short?
• What topic should we cover next time?
• Would you recommend this event to a colleague?

Open version: "What is one idea from today you plan to use, and how?"

Use this group when you explore a new segment, test an idea or check how people solve a problem today. It fits research teams and founders before a build decision. Our market research platforms page covers how to run this kind of study end to end.

• How do you handle this task today?
• What tools or services do you use for it?
• What is the most frustrating part of the current process?
• How often does this problem come up?
• What have you tried that did not work?
• If a new solution existed, what would it need to do first?

Open version: "Show or tell us how you do this task today, step by step." A short video answer here often shows the workaround itself, a spreadsheet, a sticky note, a second tool, which is exactly what you want to see.

Closed questions (ratings, NPS, multiple choice, yes or no) are fast to answer and easy to count. Use them when you need a number to track over time or a way to split answers into groups.

Open questions take more effort, so use fewer of them and make each one count. Use them when you need reasons, stories, examples or words customers actually use. Two well placed open questions often tell you more than ten rating scales.

A practical pattern is a closed question followed by one open question that asks why. "How likely are you to recommend us?" followed by "What is the main reason for your score?" is the classic version. Our guide to the nps question covers that pair in detail.

People speak differently than they type. A good prompt for a spoken answer feels like a question a curious colleague would ask in person.

• Ask about a specific moment, not a general opinion. "Tell us about the last time" works better than "What do you think about".
• Ask for one thing per question. Two topics in one prompt produce rambling answers.
• Give a soft time frame, such as "In a minute or so", so people know how much to say.
• Tell people text is still fine. Some respondents are in a quiet office or on a bus and prefer to type.
• Keep the prompt short enough to read on a phone screen without scrolling.

With voice feedback and video surveys, each open question can accept typed text, a voice note recorded in the browser or a video from a phone or laptop. You decide which formats a question allows.

Most weak surveys fail for the same few reasons. Check your draft against this list before you send it.

• Leading questions. "How much did you love the new design?" assumes the answer. Ask "What do you think of the new design?" instead.
• Double barreled questions. "Was the app fast and easy to use?" asks two things. Split it.
• Vague time frames. "Do you use reports often?" means different things to different people. Ask "How many times did you use reports last week?"
• Jargon. Internal feature names confuse respondents. Use the words customers use.
• Too many required questions. Make only the questions you truly need required.
• Long surveys with no reason. Each extra question lowers the share of people who finish.
• Asking what you already know. If your analytics show the answer, do not ask for it.

Start with the closed questions. Count responses, look at the spread and compare groups such as plan, region or tenure. This tells you where to look.

Then read the open answers for the groups that matter most, often the lowest scores first. Tag each answer with one or more themes, such as pricing, onboarding, speed or support. Count how often each theme appears and note the sentiment of each answer.

Pull a few representative quotes for each theme. A quote in the customer's own words persuades a roadmap meeting faster than a chart. Finally, write a one-page summary: what you asked, who answered, the top themes, the quotes and the actions you plan to take.

Doing this by hand takes hours once answers pass a few dozen. Survey analysis software can transcribe spoken answers, group them into themes, score sentiment per answer and pull quotes with timestamps, so your team spends its time deciding instead of tagging.