Customer surveys provide an honest and direct source of feedback that you can use to make important business decisions. Information gathered from surveys can affect various parts of your business, from what new product line to launch to where to open your second location or how to improve the customer experience.

But to get the most from customer surveys, you need to have a better understanding of them— including how to write them.

We’ve got you covered.

What Is a Customer Survey?

Customer surveys comprise questions that you ask your customers to get feedback about specific areas of your business you want more information on. Businesses regularly use customer surveys to learn about:

Customer opinions
Customer satisfaction levels
Issues with products or services
Marketing campaign effectiveness
Changes or improvements that customers feel are important
Customer preferences about cost, material choices, colour, etc.

Surveys are invaluable—they can help you get information on just about any business-related topic.

Why Use Customer Surveys?

Why should you consider using customer surveys to gain access to the information you need? Simply put, your customers are the most important people in the world to your company. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to stay in business. This means that while your customers are beholden to your company in many ways, you are also beholden to them.

Surveys are Redundant

Another common problem with surveys is redundancy. Customers don’t want to answer the same question over and over again, even if you phrase it differently. But this isn’t just a matter of repeated questions. They also don’t want to answer questions you should already know the answer to. For example, they don’t want to keep entering their personal details or information about the products they bought.

Instead, customers want to feel like individuals. It is simple to customise your survey, and this can lead to higher response rates. You can segment your audience based on who bought a given product, then send a survey about that product to those people.

The Questions are Too Personal

Respondents also don’t want to have to answer personal questions in your surveys. In fact, a Zendesk survey found that 16% of those who said surveys were a waste of time weren’t happy about the number of personal questions in them. Take this to heart and avoid highly personal questions.

If you can avoid all of these issues, then, yes, you should expect your surveys to be effective and provide useful information.

How to Format a Customer Survey

With all of the above in mind, how do you format your customer survey to get the best possible results? Keep the following best practices in mind.

Keep It Short

As mentioned, people are less likely to answer your survey if it is too long. As such, try to keep the survey as short as you can without sacrificing your ability to glean valuable information. There isn’t a hard and fast rule for the ideal survey length, but shorter is better.

Ask One Question at a Time

When you format your survey, only ask one question at a time. If there is a follow-up question, ask that separately. This will improve the accuracy and level of detail of the answers people give you. For example, if you ask about a favourite product, ask which product is the customer’s favourite in one question and why in the next question.

Include Yes and No Answers

Don’t underestimate the value of simple yes and no answers. Depending on how you craft them, these questions can give you very useful information. As a bonus, putting them at the top of the survey helps the survey seem shorter.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, a customer survey can be a very powerful tool, enabling you to drill down into the data you need to make informed, accurate decisions. No matter what your industry might be, or even how large or small your company is, surveys allow you to connect with the people who matter most to your success and learn more about what they want and expect.

How to Write Better Customer Surveys

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