Survey Questions: Examples for Customers, Employees, and Research Studies

What Questions Can You Ask in a Survey?

The content of a questionnaire depends on the research objective. An online store may need to understand why customers abandon purchases, an HR specialist may want to assess working conditions, and a marketer may need to identify which product characteristics influence consumer choices.

Before writing questions, it is important to determine what information will be needed for analysis. For example, if a company wants to improve its delivery service, it should investigate customer satisfaction with delivery times, costs, and order status updates. An overall store rating will not reveal the specific causes of difficulties.

Several main question formats can be distinguished based on how respondents provide their answers.

Closed-ended questions are suitable for quantitative analysis. Responses can be expressed as percentages, compared across respondent groups, or used to track changes over time.

Open-ended questions help researchers understand the reasons behind ratings and identify problems that were not anticipated when designing the questionnaire. They are more difficult to analyze because responses must be read, categorized by meaning, and summarized.

Different question formats can be combined within a single survey. For example, after rating service quality, respondents can be asked to explain what influenced their score.

Survey Question Examples for Customers

Customer surveys are conducted after purchases, customer support interactions, visits to businesses, or product use. The choice of questions depends on which stage of the customer experience a company wants to evaluate.

It is better to ask about a specific event, such as the most recent order, delivery, or interaction with a representative. This reduces the need to recall distant experiences and makes responses more precise.

Questions for Evaluating Customer Service Quality

This section is suitable for stores, service companies, medical centers, educational institutions, and other service providers.

1. How satisfied are you with your most recent interaction with our company? Response: rating from 1 to 5.
2. Did you receive the information you needed from our representative? Response: Yes, Partially, No.
3. How long did you wait for a representative to respond? Response: Less than 5 minutes, 5–15 minutes, More than 15 minutes, Don't remember.
4. How clear were the representative's explanations? Response: rating from 1 to 5.
5. Was your issue resolved during your first contact? Response: Yes, No, Still awaiting resolution.
6. What was the most difficult part of your interaction with our company? Response: open-ended text.

During analysis, it is useful to examine the ratings of customers whose issues were resolved on the first contact separately from those who needed to contact the company again. This helps identify whether difficulties arise from response times, consultation quality, or the organization of subsequent support processes.

Questions About Product or Service Satisfaction

Ideally, questionnaires should be sent after customers have received and had time to use their purchases. For services, the appropriate timing depends on when customers can reasonably evaluate the results.

• How well does the product you purchased meet your expectations?
• How often have you used the product in the past 30 days?
• Which features have you found most useful?
• Have you experienced any difficulties using the product?
• What would you like to change about the product?
• Do you plan to purchase this product again?

The time frame and response options should reflect the characteristics of the product. For example, when researching household appliances, asking about the frequency of repeat purchases within a month is usually less useful than evaluating ease of use.

It is important to remember that a stated intention to purchase again does not guarantee an actual purchase. To assess customer retention, survey results should be compared with purchase history.

Questions About Reasons for Abandoning a Purchase

Surveying customers who did not complete their orders helps identify barriers to purchasing.

Sample question: «What prevented you from completing your purchase?»

Response options:

• The total price was too high.
• The product I needed was unavailable.
• The delivery terms did not meet my needs.
• I experienced technical problems.
• I wanted to compare offers from other companies.
• I decided to postpone the purchase.
• Another reason.

It is advisable to allow multiple selections because price, product availability, and delivery conditions may simultaneously influence a customer's decision.

A follow-up question could be: «Which change would be most likely to help you complete your order?»

The collected responses reveal common reasons for purchase abandonment among survey participants. To assess their impact on sales, researchers should also examine website visitor behavior and abandoned checkout data.

Questions for Measuring Customer Loyalty

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is used to measure customers' willingness to recommend a company.

Main question: «How likely are you to recommend our company to friends or colleagues?»

Participants select a number from 0 to 10, where 0 means «Not at all likely» and 10 means «Extremely likely».

To calculate the score, responses are divided into three groups:

• 9–10 points — Promoters;
• 7–8 points — Passives;
• 0–6 points — Detractors.

NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. For example, with 60% promoters and 20% detractors, the NPS is +40 points.

After the rating, it is useful to ask a follow-up question: «What was the main factor influencing your rating?»

NPS reflects customers' stated willingness to recommend a company. It does not measure actual referrals and does not replace assessments of overall satisfaction or repeat purchases.

Survey Question Examples for Employees

Employee questionnaires help organizations examine working conditions, team collaboration, professional development, and attitudes toward organizational processes.

In HR research, it is particularly important to explain in advance who will have access to the results. When discussing management, compensation, or workplace conflicts, employees may fear negative consequences. If a survey is described as anonymous, its settings and collected information must genuinely prevent respondents from being identified.

Working Conditions and Work Organization

Rather than asking employees to evaluate their overall experience at the company, it is more useful to examine specific aspects of work. Employees can be asked to indicate their level of agreement with the following statements on a five-point scale.

1. I have the equipment and tools I need to perform my work tasks.
2. I understand what results are expected of me.
3. My workload allows me to complete tasks within established deadlines.
4. I receive timely information about changes to work processes.
5. I know whom to contact when difficulties arise.
6. I have opportunities to report problems that affect the quality of my work.

Additional open-ended question: «What changes to work organization would help you perform your tasks more effectively?»

It is useful to analyze results by department, provided the group sizes are sufficient to protect the confidentiality of responses. For example, equipment problems may affect a particular department even when the company's overall average rating remains high.

Motivation and Professional Development

This section helps determine how well employees understand career opportunities, performance evaluation criteria, and available training options.

• Do you understand the criteria used to evaluate your work?
• How satisfied are you with the available professional training opportunities?
• Do you receive meaningful feedback on your work performance?
• Which professional skills would you like to develop over the next year?
• What factors prevent you from achieving better results?

To identify priorities, employees can be asked: «Which two changes would be most important to you?»

Response options: revising the compensation system, improving equipment, providing additional training, changing work schedules, clarifying the distribution of responsibilities, or other.

Limiting the number of selections helps identify the most important priorities when a company is planning improvements but cannot implement every suggestion simultaneously.

Relationships with Managers and Colleagues

Questions about specific workplace situations are more useful for evaluating collaboration than general requests to describe a manager's personality or professional qualities.

1. How often do you receive feedback on completed tasks?
2. How clear are the priorities communicated by your manager?
3. Can you discuss work-related difficulties without fear of negative consequences?
4. How effectively are responsibilities distributed within your team?
5. How often do you lack the information you need from colleagues to complete your tasks?
6. What changes could improve collaboration within your department?

Frequency questions can use options such as «Weekly», «Several times a month», «Less than once a month», and «Never».

When processing anonymous questionnaires, results from very small groups should not be published separately. A combination of job title, department, and length of service can sometimes identify a specific employee even without their name.

New Employee Onboarding

Surveys conducted after employees start work help evaluate introductory training, access to information, and support from colleagues.

Sample questionnaire for the first month of employment:

1. Did you receive the necessary information before your first working day?
2. Were your tasks for the first week clear?
3. Did you know whom to contact for help?
4. Did you have enough time to learn how to use the necessary work tools?
5. What difficulties did you experience during your first month?
6. What would you change about the onboarding program?

Comparing the responses of employees who completed onboarding at different times can help evaluate improvements following updates to instructions, mentoring arrangements, or introductory training.

Survey Question Examples for Marketing Research

Marketing surveys are used to study target audiences, develop products, research competitors, and evaluate brand perceptions.

When preparing a questionnaire, it is important to distinguish actual behavior, preferences, and future intentions. A person may consider a particular product feature important but make purchasing decisions based on other factors.

Understanding Target Audience Needs

Suppose a company plans to launch a prepared meal delivery service. Before developing its offering, it needs to investigate potential customers' purchasing habits.

1. Have you ordered prepared meals for delivery in the past 30 days?
2. How often do you use prepared meal delivery services?
3. In what situations do you usually place an order?
4. Which delivery services have you used in the past three months?
5. Which three service characteristics are most important when making your choice?
6. What problems have you experienced when placing or receiving orders?
7. How much do you usually spend on a single order, excluding delivery fees?

Based on the responses, the audience can be segmented by ordering frequency, typical spending, and preferences. This helps identify popular use cases and formulate hypotheses for further testing.

Measuring Brand Awareness

Question order is particularly important when studying brand awareness. If participants are shown a list of brands first, this may influence their subsequent responses.

Therefore, the survey should begin with an open-ended question:

«Which sportswear brands do you know? Name all the brands that come to mind.»

This can be followed by an aided awareness question: «Which of the following brands are you familiar with, even if only by name?»

The next section may include questions such as:

• Which brands have you purchased products from in the past 12 months?
• Which brand did you choose for your most recent purchase?
• Where did you first hear about Brand X?
• What characteristics do you associate with Brand X?

To examine brand perceptions in greater detail, researchers use rating scales with opposing characteristics, such as «modern — outdated» or «affordable — expensive». This approach makes it possible to compare several brand images using the same criteria.

Testing a New Product

Before launching a product, researchers can show participants its description, image, or prototype to determine how clearly they understand the offering and which needs it addresses.

1. What purpose do you think this product serves?
2. How relevant is the problem it solves to you?
3. Which features caught your attention?
4. What remained unclear after you reviewed the description?
5. Which similar products do you currently use?
6. Under what circumstances would you consider purchasing it?
7. What might prevent you from purchasing this product?

If the goal is to investigate attitudes toward pricing, researchers can add a question about an acceptable price range or conduct a separate price sensitivity study.

When interpreting the findings, it is important to remember that stated purchase intentions do not necessarily translate into actual demand. Survey conclusions should ideally be supplemented with test sales, experiments, or observations of customer behavior.

Survey Question Examples for Sociological and Educational Research

In public opinion and educational research, neutral wording, clearly defined time periods, and questions relevant to participants' actual experiences are particularly important.

Public Opinion Research

Consider a survey of residents about public transportation services in their city.

1. Have you used public transportation in the past seven days?
2. Which type of transportation have you used most frequently?
3. How long does your typical one-way journey take?
4. How would you rate schedule adherence on the routes you use?
5. How satisfied are you with the accessibility of public transportation stops in your neighborhood?
6. Which public transportation problems do you consider most significant?
7. What single improvement would you suggest as the highest priority?

Questions about personal transportation experiences should only be shown to participants who use the relevant services. Screening questions and conditional branching between sections can be used for this purpose.

When publishing results, researchers must consider how the sample was selected. For example, responses from members of a local online community cannot automatically be generalized to all city residents. Generalization requires a sample that adequately represents the target population in relevant characteristics and a justified participant selection procedure.

Student Surveys

In educational institutions, questionnaires help evaluate curriculum content, the quality of learning materials, and the organization of classes.

• How clear were the assignment requirements this semester?
• Did you have sufficient materials for independent study?
• How often did you seek guidance from your instructor?
• How useful was the feedback you received on completed assignments?
• Which course topics required additional explanation?
• What would you suggest changing about how classes are organized?

If the research evaluates individual instructors, it is important to establish appropriate access to responses and create conditions in which students can express their opinions freely.

How to Name a Survey: Title Examples for Different Purposes

A survey title should clearly explain what the questionnaire is about. Readers should immediately understand the research topic and whether it relates to their experience.

Generic titles such as «Questionnaire No. 3» or «Quality Study» provide very little information. Titles that suggest a predetermined evaluation, such as «Why Do You Like Our Service?», are also undesirable because they may influence how participants perceive subsequent questions.

Question-style titles work well for short customer surveys. Corporate and academic research more commonly uses neutral, topic-based headings.

The title should ideally be accompanied by a short introduction explaining the research purpose and expected completion time.

Example: «Review of Your Most Recent Order. Answer 6 questions about delivery and checkout. The survey will take approximately 2 minutes.»

Completion time should be stated after preliminary questionnaire testing so that participants' expectations match the actual time required.

How to Write Effective Survey Questions and Response Options

Wording mistakes can influence survey results even when the number of participants is sufficient. Avoiding ambiguity is particularly important when data will be compared across groups or used to evaluate changes over time.

The Question Contains a Leading Statement

Poor wording: «How much did you enjoy our fast and convenient service?»

This question describes the service positively before respondents have had a chance to evaluate it.

Better wording: «How would you rate the ease of placing an order?»

If service speed also needs to be evaluated, it should be addressed in a separate question.

Several Characteristics Are Combined in One Question

Poor wording: «Are you satisfied with your salary and work schedule?»

An employee may be satisfied with their schedule but dissatisfied with their compensation. A single response cannot distinguish between these evaluations.

Better wording:

• How satisfied are you with your compensation?
• How satisfied are you with your current work schedule?

The Time Period Is Not Specified

Poor wording: «How often do you shop online?»

Participants may interpret the concept of frequency differently.

Better wording: «How many online purchases have you made in the past 30 days?»

Response options: «None», «1–2», «3–5», «6 or more», «Don't remember».

If the exact number of purchases is required, a numerical input field can be used instead of ranges.

Not All Relevant Response Options Are Provided

For example, the question «How do you usually commute to work?» with only two response options, «By car» and «By public transportation», excludes employees who walk, cycle, or work from home.

Single-choice questions should provide mutually exclusive response options covering all relevant situations. An «Other» option can be added for less common cases.

Respondents Cannot Provide a Meaningful Rating

Someone who has never used a service cannot reasonably evaluate its quality. Therefore, some questions require options such as «Have not used», «Not sure», or «Not applicable».

These options represent different circumstances. «Not applicable» means the characteristic is not relevant to the respondent's experience, while «Not sure» indicates that they cannot provide a definite evaluation.

During analysis, such responses should be treated separately rather than assigned neutral scale values.

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Ready-to-Use Survey Example with Questions and Response Options

Consider a short questionnaire for an online store. It combines rating-scale, closed-ended, and open-ended questions and is suitable for collecting post-purchase feedback.

Title: «Review of Your Most Recent Order».

Objective: Evaluate the ease of placing an order, assess delivery quality, and identify the most common difficulties.

Introduction: «Tell us about your most recent order. Your answers will help us identify which stages of the purchasing process need improvement. The survey will take approximately 2–3 minutes.»

Conditional branching should be configured for this questionnaire. Question four is displayed only to respondents who reported difficulties during checkout. Questions six and seven are intended for customers who have already received their orders. If delivery is still pending, participants can proceed directly to the final question.

For ratings of convenience, clarity of information, and overall satisfaction, the endpoints of the scale should be labeled. For example, 1 could mean «Completely dissatisfied» and 5 could mean «Completely satisfied».

After completing the study, researchers can calculate the percentage of customers who experienced problems, identify common causes of difficulties, and compare ratings across different stages of the ordering process.

How to Create a Survey in QForm and Analyze Responses

After preparing the questions, the next step is to turn the questionnaire into an online form, configure its completion logic, and organize data collection. For this purpose, you can use QForm, a no-code platform for creating online forms, quizzes, and surveys.

The form builder supports single-choice and multiple-choice fields, text responses, ratings, scales, and other elements. For multi-step surveys, conditional transitions between sections can be configured based on selected responses. Completed forms can be embedded into websites or shared through links and QR codes.

QForm includes tools for analyzing survey results. The 3.15.1 update released on August 12, 2026 expanded overall analytics by introducing summary metrics for one or multiple forms, response and rating distributions for individual fields, and data segmentation by UTM tags. These features make it possible to compare results from several questionnaires and analyze responses based on traffic sources. Collected data can also be exported for further processing.

If you need to quickly prepare a customer survey, employee questionnaire, or audience research study, sign up for QForm and create your first form using the visual builder. You can start with a ready-made template or generate a structure using the AI assistant, then edit the questions, customize the design, and test the questionnaire before publishing. The platform offers a free plan and a trial period to explore its features.

How to Test a Completed Survey Before Publishing

Before launching the survey, it is advisable to test the questionnaire with several representatives of the target audience. Ask them to complete all stages and report which questions were unclear, where response options were insufficient, and how long it took to complete