Looking for creative, proven survey ideas and survey sample questions?
In this article, we’ll take you through:
- 10 interesting survey ideas and survey question examples
- The 30 best survey questions you can ask your target audience
- The 5 types of surveys you can conduct in 2023
Click to jump to the section that interests you.
10 Survey Ideas & Survey Questions Examples
You already know how valuable online surveys are for businesses, big or small. But don’t you need interesting survey topics customers can’t ignore? You certainly do, especially in the post-pandemic world of 2023. And that’s what we’re doing here.
Before we get into some survey ideas for you. Here are some survey questions examples for you get started right away!
- If you wish to change one thing about our product, what would it be? 😇
- On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate us? (0=terrible, 10+excellent)
- How would you rate our product? 👀 – Disappointed, Okayish, Good, Extremely good.
- What’s your mood right now? 😬 – Picture choice questions
- Was this survey useful? – Yes, No.
We’ve put the above survey questions in the form of a survey here. Take a look.
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Okay, now back to some survey ideas that you can adopt right away.
10 Interesting Survey Ideas
1. A Survey To Bring Change
2021 changed the way companies run, employees work, and customers think. Now, in this post-Covid era, people are warier about their spending and safety. They need far better quality and health checks to convince them into buying something and are happy to save a lot more for rainy days.
This is why knowing their entire thought process and not just their feedback is crucial. Because they’ve changed, and they would expect the same from your brand.
So, why not conduct a very candid survey to know what they think should change? Believe us, all customers and target groups would regard your brand highly for understanding the need for such changes. And they’ll start trusting it more than ever, which is priceless!
2. A Survey To Just Talk
No survey idea would work if there’s no aim behind it. So aims are important with surveys, but that doesn’t mean they should only be about you, your products, service, and your company.
It can, and it should also be about knowing the customer’s present state. Are they doing well? What’s bothering them the most at present? How can they feel better?
This way, you get to understand if all customers are doing fine, physically and mentally. And if they’re not, several things can be done to help them. The bond between your customers and the brand would only get better if such survey ideas are implemented. And we’ve seen that happening for our clients.
3. A Survey To Get New Ideas
Getting the first success would only increase pressure to keep doing that again and again.
So, in the list of cool survey ideas, this one is all about taking new product ideas from your customers and target group.
Yes, we’re actually saying this! Survey the customers and even those who’re not, to find new ideas that can be developed into products.
We’ve done that here at SurveySparrow with offline surveys, our clients have done the same, and trust us, if the right questions are included, you’ll get a gold mine of valuable data from this.
4. A Survey To Market Better
Instead of letting your marketing team take the entire stress of developing a marketing strategy, why not let the customers pitch in here through surveys? A question to ponder for you.
5. A Survey To Know Why Customers Would Leave
It is one of those survey ideas that won’t work if the survey respondents don’t tick the required boxes.
- First, asking someone who has never used your products or services about the reasons for leaving is a big no-no.
- Then, you don’t want to conduct this survey on a group that has recently turned into customers.
- And last, there’s no point in including churned customers for this survey because they would hardly bother replying.
So, conduct this survey on customers who’ve been using your services for quite some time and understand its functionality completely. Heer are some survey question ideas for this topic:
- What would we do or not do that can make you leave us?
- Or, if you ever stop using our services, what could be the reasons be?
- Or, while using our service, do you get frustrated with some functionality?
Try keeping these as open-ended questions to give customers a chance of expressing themselves. The data collected from this survey would give logical ideas of why your present group of customers might churn away. And having that information is a big deal!
6. A Survey About Understanding Promoters
NPS surveys are great for finding promoters, but you know what…every one of your customers will be a promoter for your brand.
All they want is the fulfillment of their specific needs and requirements. And this is where you can conduct surveys and ask direct questions on how can they be turned into your brand evangelists.
This is one of the most ignored survey ideas according to us. But we’re getting a feeling you aren’t the ignorant types. So, use it. You’ll not regret the decision!
7. A Survey To Understand Workplace Changes
These are good survey topics for employees.
If you’re planning to move back into the office after a lengthy WFH spell, conducting surveys to understand the required workplace changes is important.
Things aren’t the same as they were before the pandemic and lockdown. Your employees, and even you, must’ve developed certain habits working from home. So, know all about them, bring the right changes, and the office is waiting for you all.
8. A Survey To Optimize The Buying Process
Does the purchase process involve too many steps? Does it take too long? Too much information required?
If you wish to know the answers, conducting a survey becomes a no-brainer.
And based on the survey results, optimizing the purchase path or process would result in less time consumption and would be more value-adding. Sweet, right?
9. A Survey To Evaluate Website
For any business, their website plays a massive role in building brand authority.
And in that case, one of the most interesting survey ideas would be to conduct website evaluation surveys.
By evaluation, we mean the evaluation of information present in the website, placement of that information, and the design & UI of the website.
The website needs to be outstanding and attractive as it’s the first point of contact between the target group and your brand. And you want this first impression to be near perfect, don’t you?
10. A Survey To Check When To Survey
It’s one of those survey ideas that lets your teams understand the best time in the day, month, and year, to contact a customer for surveys, offers, webinars, and more.
As you know, one of the key things about customer satisfaction is to not end up in their email, again and again, i.e., contact them when they’re most willing to talk, and not anytime.
30 Survey Questions That Always Work
You have the survey ideas now, but what about the survey questions? What are some quality survey questions that always bring the right results? We’ll address that here. So, keep sipping on that coffee, and enjoy reading.
Questions For The Buying Process
- What specific information would make your buying decision easier?
- Is the purpose of your website visit today fulfilled?
- What stopped you from making the purchase today/yesterday?
- How can we improve the checkout process?
- Were you having second thoughts before making the buying decision? If yes, what were they about?
- What part of the product did you like the most?
- How would you rate the complete buying process on a scale from 1 to 10?
- Is there a step in the buying process you think is unnecessary?
- Where did you come to know about the features of the purchased product?
- Did you have any concerns regarding purchasing from us?
Questions Related To Product
- What’s the best feature of [product name] according to you?
- What changes could be brought into [product name]?
- Does [product name] need an update to include more functionalities?
- What aspect of [product name] do you wish to test carefully in the free trial?
- What persuaded you to choose our product over our competitor’s?
- Which functionality of [product name] do you find challenging to use?
- What new product ideas should we be working on?
- How satisfied are you using [product name] on a scale from 1 to 10?
- Is there any part of the product/service that isn’t working as per your expectations?
- What new functionality or feature should we include in [product name]?
Questions On Employee Engagement & Satisfaction
- How would you describe working at [company name] in a single word?
- Would you refer a friend or a family member for a job here?
- On a scale of 10, how would you rate the workload based on the role?
- What part of the organization’s culture do you like the most?
- On a scale of 10, how satisfied are you working at [company name]?
- Are you recognized and appreciated for the work you’re putting in?
- What can we do better to improve your satisfaction levels?
- When facing a problem, how comfortable are you talking to the manager/superior?
- In a meeting, how comfortably can you share your honest opinions?
- Do you think the higher management thinks about your engagement and satisfaction levels?
Admittedly, choosing from a question list can be tricky. If you need a category-specific prompt, then you can use our random question generator.
Choose From These 5 Survey Types
To put it crisply, you now know why surveys can’t be ignored, and why it’s better to use new, interesting, and often ignored survey ideas in 2021. But what about the different survey types? Knowing about them is important so your teams can choose the right one at the right time.
You get its importance. So, time to start here. Keep reading. The last bit of crucial information is here.
#1. Online Surveys
A survey type that came with the age of technology. And with technological advancements, online surveys are getting better and better. This survey type or technique requires online survey software to send selected questions to the target audience for their feedback. The best thing about online surveys is they can be accessed from anywhere (literally!) and even without an active internet connection, see offline surveys. Plus, they take far less time to design than any other survey type you’ll see in this section. Impressed, aren’t you?
Now, online surveys again have 6 categories depending on the purpose they’re being used for. Let’s quickly know about them.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) Surveys– NPS surveys help understand the likelihood of your product or service being recommended by the customer. It shows your customer’s loyalty and brand advocacy towards your company.
Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSAT)– As the name suggests, CSAT surveys help you measure the satisfaction levels of your customers regarding your offerings and brand.
Market Research Surveys– A type of survey that’s conducted before launching a new product or service. It helps understand the market trends and viability of the new launch.
Post-Event Surveys– Used by event organizers to measure how successful their recent event was based on the collected attendee feedback.
Employee Satisfaction Surveys– Employee satisfaction surveys help the HR teams engage and understand employee needs better while measuring their satisfaction levels.
Academic Research Surveys– Majorly used by grad students to support and validate their research with fresh, real-world data.
#2. Paper Surveys
One of the more traditional survey types, paper surveys were extensively used before online surveys took their place. The pen and paper approach is used to collect feedback from the respondents and then analyzed manually (in most cases) to find actionable data. Their sheer volume makes paper surveys an expensive survey type, but they can go anywhere. Just get the questions on pieces of paper, give out pens, and the feedback would be collected then and there. Great for places where technology and online surveys can’t reach.
#3. Telephonic Surveys
Telephonic surveys are used to conduct research and interview people over telephones. Respondents need to answer questions asked over a call and based on the responses, research data is gathered. Another traditional survey type!
#4. One-to-one Interviews
For collecting feedback on a research topic, one-to-one interviews are way better than telephonic surveys. Sure, they also are time-consuming. But the survey taker will get the complete attention of the respondents, which allows them to get better and more thoughtful responses. Most suitable if the target audience is small.
#5. Kiosk Surveys
One of the more modern survey types, Kiosk surveys has a very interesting way of collecting respondent feedbacks. A computer screen at a physical kiosk is used, where customers are requested to take up a feedback survey right after they make a purchase or complete a hotel stay. The responses they give here are more authentic, as their experience is fresh. And that’s what you want, right? Quality data from your surveys.
Bonus Content: Surveys Can’t Be Ignored. Here Are The Top 7 Reasons Why.
Before discussing anything else, it’s important to first talk about the reasons for conducting surveys in your business, and why can’t you ignore them? Let’s jump right in, then.
#1: Know Customers Better
As a leader, if you want to know your customers and target audience better, conduct surveys. This is because any product or service should fulfill the needs and wants of customers, and knowing fully about them is the only way your development team can do that. Conducting surveys helps in knowing their likes, dislikes, hobbies, behavioral patterns, personal information, and even their thought process, which your teams can use to give the right experience.
#2: Gauge Customer Satisfaction at a Glance
This is a crucial point that comes when someone is already your customer. You want to know how happy or satisfied they are with the products, service, and brand. And conducting surveys like the Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSAT) is the easiest way to find that out. Trust us on that!
#3: Find Your Promoters
This is where Net Promoter Score surveys come into the picture. As they let your teams find out promoters for the brand from the existing pool of customers. This helps to pivot, strategize better, and ultimately turn more customers into promoters.
#4: Demystify The Future
Success once is far easier than repeating that. If you want the business to keep growing, you and your teams can’t bask in the glory of just one successful product. Keep building better products. That should be the mantra, and surveys are the best bet here. How? As they let you know how the customers are evolving? What new do they want or like? And what old do they wish to leave? Based on the feedback collected, the product team can upgrade existing offerings or build new ones that can do justice to the customer’s needs.
#5: Customers Leave, But Why?
Here’s a fact, no matter how good your offerings are, some customers would still leave. It doesn’t mean you or the team were doing something wrong. Well, they might be, which is why there’s no harm in conducting exit surveys to find why they left? The responses from the feedback surveys would help identify and rectify the problem areas, which would ultimately mean – Low customer churn in the future. Ain’t that the goal?
#6: Customer Service Team’s Performance
This is crucial to figure since your customer service team’s performance influences customer satisfaction immensely. An Internal Quality Survey (IQS) would do the job here. It’s a metric-based evaluation type survey taken by peers, managers, and leaders to evaluate every customer representative on a quarterly, half-yearly, or annual basis.
#7: Status Of Your Employees
Employee satisfaction has garnered tremendous attention in the pandemic’s wake. And we also think it’s right to focus on the satisfaction and growth levels of your employees. A 360-degree feedback software would help in doing that with ease. Do check it out, as happy employees, bring happy customers, and you want that in your organization!
Time To Get The Ball Rolling
When we first got the idea about this topic, we wanted to focus primarily on survey ideas. But when the research started, it was clear it won’t be enough, rather, it would be incomplete! The reason is, only survey ideas aren’t enough for any team or business to start with it. So, we found the top reasons why conducting surveys is essential for a company’s growth, worked on including some time-tested survey questions, and gave the needed information about the different survey types.
A complete guide to conducting engaging surveys. That’s what we’ve tried to do here, and this is where your and your team’s work starts! Whatever value you’ve taken out of this, it’s time to use it in your next survey.
Like we said at the start, things have drastically changed for everyone post-2020. The way your customers interact with your brand, the way they reply, show interest, and give feedback, everything’s changed. So, what’s the point of conducting the same old surveys when you can go fresh?
We’ll leave you with this thought while waiting for your reply.
Keep surveying!
