47 excellent customer service survey questions

A great customer service experience is a hot topic of conversation when I’m with my friends. It’s not because our lives are so boring that something as routine as customer service is exciting to us — it’s because a truly outstanding customer service experience is so rare, so unusual, that when it does happen, you almost can’t believe it. And when you do experience it, you remember it for months to come and share it with friends, family, and colleagues.

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you likely already know that the benefits of providing excellent customer service go well beyond people singing your praises to their friends. 

Stellar customer service has a direct link to positive business outcomes — like increased sales and profits. A 2019 Forbes roundup of statistics found that 84 percent of companies that focus on improving the customer experience report an increase in revenue — and that’s not the only benefit they see. 

If you want to deliver the kind of customer service that creates happy customers — and, by extension, increased sales — then a customer service survey is a great way to gather the intel you need to get there.

Why your business needs customer feedback

Using surveys for customer input is a quick way to see what your customers like and dislike. As you listen to the needs and desires of your customers, you’ll uncover a clear pathway to improve the products and services that meet the needs of your target demographic.

Research studies have found that high levels of customer satisfaction are predictors of

• Customer loyalty
• Customer retention
• Product/service repurchases
• Customer referrals

Survey feedback can provide your business with valuable insights to reinforce the right interactions with customers, helping to maintain relationships with current customers while also bringing in new ones.

Timing and implementation of a customer survey program

Timing matters when asking for customer feedback, which is why it’s essential to consider how these surveys fit into the buying cycle. Here are a few factors you need to consider when determining the right timing of customer surveys:

• When the customer purchased the product/service
• The type of service or product
• Intended use of the service or product
• Frequency of customer interactions

For example, you might design a survey to get post-purchase feedback from customers. Or it can be valuable to measure periodic satisfaction as the customer continues using your products and/or services.

The purpose of a customer experience survey

The critical insights you gain from customer feedback will help you enhance every part of the customer journey. You can use this intel to identify strengths and weaknesses, improve customer service, develop new products and services, pinpoint and deliver what your target audience wants, and grow as a company.

Other objectives include

• Improving customer retention
• Gathering ideas for new products and services
• Identifying poor performers among current products and services
• Evaluating the performance of customer service and sales representatives
• Collecting voice of the customer (VOC) language to improve web copy and other key content and copy assets
• Developing effective marketing campaigns
• Turning one-time customers into happy repeat customers and brand evangelists
• Getting website performance feedback
• Improving shipping, delivery, and other processes

Customer service survey questions

When it comes to which questions to ask on your customer service survey, include questions that will give you insight into what changes you can make to improve your most important key performance indicators. Those will differ from business to business.

It’s wise to use a mix of yes-or-no questions, rating questions, and open-ended questions. Some respondents may only answer the easy yes-or-no questions and skip the others. While it may be tempting to exclude rating and open-ended questions entirely in order to increase survey completion rates, the answers to these questions often reveal profound customer insights and honest opinions you wouldn’t discover any other way.

Here are 47 customer service survey questions to choose from.

Yes-or-no customer service survey questions

1. Did the customer service representative resolve your issue to your satisfaction?
2. Was the customer service representative knowledgeable and helpful?
3. Was the customer service representative polite and friendly?
4. Did the customer service representative seem well trained?
5. Did the customer service representative make you feel valued as a customer?  
6. Did someone resolve your issue quickly?
7. Did you find it easy to contact us?
8. Overall, were you satisfied with the customer service representative’s performance?

Rating customer service survey questions

9. Based on your experience, on a scale of 1–10 (1 = not at all likely; 10 = extremely likely), how likely are you to recommend us to friends, family, or colleagues?
10. On a scale of 1–10 (1 = unhappy; 10 = very happy), how would you rate your satisfaction with the customer service representative you spoke to?
11. On a scale of 1–10 (1 = difficult; 10 = very easy), how would you rate the effort you had to make to get in touch with us?
12. On a scale of 1–10 (1 = difficult; 10 = very easy), how would you rate the effort you had to make to speak directly to someone on the customer service team?
13. Overall, how would you rate the quality of your customer service experience (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)?

Open-ended customer service survey questions

14. How well did the customer service representative understand your question?
15. How helpful and clear was the advice the customer service representative provided?
16. What did you enjoy most about your customer service experience with us?
17. What did you enjoy least about your customer service experience with us?
18. How would you describe your customer service experience with us in a few words?
19. What suggestions do you have for improving our customer service experience overall?
20. What can we do to improve your specific experience with us?
21. What else would you like us to know?
22. Do you have any other suggestions?

Product/service usage questions

23. How often do you use the product/service?
24. Did the product/service meet your expectations? Why or why not?
25. What would you change about the product/service?
26. How well does our product/service meet your needs?
27. Which features are most valuable to you?
28. Are any important features missing?
29. On a scale of 1 to 10, please rate the value of the product/service based on the money you spent.
30. How likely are you to recommend this product/service to a friend?
31. How satisfied are you with the available shipping options?

Demographic survey questions

Questions that ask for demographic data will help you define your target audience. This information will be useful to your sales and marketing teams when prospecting for ideal or most likely buyers.

It’s a good idea to make answering these questions optional or to give respondents a “prefer not to say” choice among the answer selections.

32. How old are you? (Offer age range options.)
33. What is your gender? (Only ask if necessary. Offer a multiple-choice list of options that includes nonbinary, the option to self-describe, or the ability to opt out of the question.)
34. Where do you live?
35. What is your employment status?
36. What is your marital status, and do you have children?
37. What is your annual household income?

Customer satisfaction survey questions

You can use the responses to these questions to gauge brand image and perception, customer loyalty, and price vs value perception.

38. How would you rate the value of the product/service against its cost?
39. What are two to three things we could do better?
40. Do you consider yourself a loyal customer of our brand?
41. What would you tell a friend or colleague who asked about us?
42. How likely are you to buy from us again?

This information can help you strengthen your value proposition, among other things.

Marketing and competition survey questions

Marketing and competition survey questions can help you assess the impact of your marketing efforts and find out how you stack up against the competition in your space. This is very useful information to have when identifying marketing opportunities, determining your marketing strategy, and designing effective marketing campaigns.

43. Where did you learn about our products/services?
44. Why did you choose our product/service over similar products/services on the market?
45. Do you find our products/services better, worse, or about the same as those of our competitors?
46. Do you follow us on social media? Which platforms?
47. Do you read our blog and/or subscribe to our email newsletter?

Use the questions above as a starting point to brainstorm ideas for your own customer survey questions, and you’ll be on the way to getting the kind of juicy customer feedback that will help you improve all the touchpoints of your business.

But what about the technical aspect of creating these surveys? Whatever your survey needs, Jotform can help.

Of course, every business wants to increase revenue and profits, but those things often come from providing a stellar customer service experience, which generates strong brand loyalty and happy lifetime customers. And happy lifetime customers spend more — and spread the good word about your business far and wide.

Jotform offers the largest selection of free form templates available online for nearly every kind of business, including a fully customizable client satisfaction survey along with survey templates that you can easily embed on your website or send via a link directly to your customers and clients.

You can also use our free drag-and-drop survey maker and add your own questions, set up conditional logic, and share your custom survey online to start collecting responses instantly.

You can even consolidate customer feedback from surveys in a single database using our table templates. Choose from among 270-plus free table templates or create your own customized customer feedback log.