A useful survey question asks about one specific thing and gives people a way to answer accurately. Use a choice or rating when you need comparable answers, and an open question when you need an explanation. The 30 examples below cover six common jobs. Choose the few that support your decision, adapt the wording, and test the whole questionnaire before sharing it.
Start with a sentence such as “We need to decide which part of workshop check-in to change.” That is easier to turn into useful questions than “We want feedback.” A score can show where to look; a focused follow-up can help explain what happened.
Choose the answer format before adding more questions
| Format | Use it to learn | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Single choice | Which one category fits | “Which session did you attend?” |
| Checkboxes | Which of several experiences apply | “Which resources did you use? Select all that apply.” |
| Ordered rating | How someone rates one experience | “How satisfied were you with today’s delivery?” |
| Agreement item | How strongly someone agrees with a statement | “I know where to find the onboarding checklist.” |
| Open text | A reason, obstacle or suggestion in their words | “What, if anything, made checkout difficult?” |
| Number | A quantity with a clear unit and period | “How many times did you use the app in the past seven days?” |
An agreement item with ordered options is often called a Likert item. A star rating, recommendation score and agreement question do different jobs; do not treat them as interchangeable measures.
Pew Research Center explains (opens in a new tab) that wording and the choices offered can change the answers. Keep questions and answer options consistent when comparing periods. Do not change from “satisfaction” to “ease” halfway through a trend and treat the scores as the same measure.
Customer feedback survey question examples
Use these after a named interaction: a delivery, support conversation or appointment. Replace the bracketed text with the actual experience. This group helps you distinguish a score, its explanation and whether follow-up is needed.
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How satisfied or dissatisfied were you with [today’s delivery]?
Suggested answer format: Five ordered satisfaction choices.
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What was the main reason for your rating?
Suggested answer format: Optional open text.
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Was your issue resolved during [today’s support conversation]?
Suggested answer format: Yes / Partly / No / Not applicable.
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How likely are you to recommend [company] to a friend or colleague?
Suggested answer format: 0–10, from Not at all likely to Extremely likely.
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What is one thing we could change about [the booking process]?
Suggested answer format: Optional open text.
Question 4 follows the Net Promoter System’s recommendation format (opens in a new tab). It asks something different from satisfaction with one interaction. If you report NPS, use its defined scoring method rather than averaging the ratings: percentage of 9–10 responses minus percentage of 0–6 responses. Scores of 7–8 remain in the respondent total. A recommendation score does not explain what to fix, so retain a useful follow-up.
Start with the customer feedback template, or use a dedicated NPS starter when recommendation is the measure you need.
For a deeper look at purchases, support and service appointments, see our customer feedback questions and follow-up plan.
Post-event survey question examples
Name the event and distinguish attendance from usefulness. Someone who did not attend a session cannot rate it, and a session can be enjoyable without helping with the task they came to learn.
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Which parts of [Saturday’s workshop] did you attend?
Suggested answer format: Checkboxes listing the actual sessions.
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How useful was [the budgeting session] for the task you came to learn?
Suggested answer format: Five usefulness choices, plus Did not attend.
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How easy or difficult was it to find the venue?
Suggested answer format: Five ease choices, plus Not applicable.
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What, if anything, should we change about check-in?
Suggested answer format: Optional open text.
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Which one topic would you most like the next workshop to cover?
Suggested answer format: Single choice, with Other and No preference.
If your tool supports routing, show session follow-ups to the relevant attendees. Otherwise include a genuine “Did not attend” answer or make the question optional. Our event feedback template is a starting point; edit the questions to match the event you ran.
Product and website survey question examples
Ask about a recent task rather than requiring people to invent a product roadmap. “What were you trying to do?” can reveal a different problem from the feature someone initially requests.
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What were you trying to do on the website today?
Suggested answer format: Short text, or task choices developed from earlier feedback.
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Were you able to complete that task?
Suggested answer format: Yes / Partly / No / I was only browsing.
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What, if anything, got in your way?
Suggested answer format: Optional open text.
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How many times did you use [the app] in the past seven days?
Suggested answer format: Whole number, including zero.
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Which one of these tasks would you most like us to improve?
Suggested answer format: Single choice from real tasks, plus Other and No preference.
Do not read question 15 as a promise to build the winning option. Compare requests with the task, the people affected and other evidence. A voluntary website survey describes the people who answered it; it does not automatically represent every visitor. AAPOR’s guidance (opens in a new tab) treats sample selection and transparent reporting as part of survey quality.
Use the product feedback template to collect explanations alongside structured answers.
Employee and onboarding survey question examples
Keep these focused on a work process you can change. For recurring checks, state the period clearly. Before collecting employee feedback, explain who will see individual answers; leaving out a name field alone does not guarantee anonymity.
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How clear were your priorities for the working week ending [date]?
Suggested answer format: Five clarity choices.
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In that week, how often could you get the information needed to do your work?
Suggested answer format: Never / Rarely / Sometimes / Often / Always / Not applicable.
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What is one recurring obstacle in your work that we could address?
Suggested answer format: Optional open text.
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I know who to ask when I need help with [the expense process].
Suggested answer format: Five agreement choices, plus Not applicable.
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What information would have helped you during your first week?
Suggested answer format: Optional open text for recent starters.
Question 19 is an agreement item; question 16 asks directly about clarity. Pick the format that matches your goal and keep it stable. Avoid breaking a small team into so many categories that a supposedly anonymous comment becomes easy to attribute. The employee survey template can supply a structure, but its introduction should describe your real handling of answers.
Course and training survey question examples
Separate delivery, materials and the opportunity to apply a skill. A self-reported confidence score is not proof that someone can perform the task; use an appropriate practical assessment when you need to measure that.
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How clear were the instructions for [the practice exercise]?
Suggested answer format: Five clarity choices.
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How well did the pace of [the session] suit you?
Suggested answer format: Much too slow / A little too slow / About right / A little too fast / Much too fast.
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Which resource did you find most useful during the exercise?
Suggested answer format: Single choice listing resources, plus None and Did not use them.
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How confident are you that you can [create a project budget] after the session?
Suggested answer format: Five confidence choices, plus Not applicable.
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What would you change about the next session?
Suggested answer format: Optional open text.
These questions support different changes: clearer instructions, different pacing or revised resources. Use the course evaluation template and remove any question you cannot connect to an action.
Open-ended survey question examples
Open questions are useful when your existing categories might miss the answer. They still need context: replace “Tell us more” with a specific moment or task.
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What were you hoping to achieve when you signed up?
Suggested answer format: Short text.
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Describe the last time you tried to [submit an expense].
Suggested answer format: Optional long text.
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Which part of [the setup process] took the most effort, if any?
Suggested answer format: Optional open text.
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What would you like us to understand about [your recent visit]?
Suggested answer format: Optional text, or voice with a typed alternative.
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Is there anything relevant to [today’s appointment] that we have not asked?
Suggested answer format: Optional open text.
You do not need all five. In Pew’s study of open-ended questions (opens in a new tab), questions asking for longer answers generally had more missing answers than those asking for one word or a phrase. That finding comes from Pew’s panel surveys, not a completion-rate test of your form. Ask for the detail you will actually read.
Voice can suit an explanation or story, but offer typing for people who cannot speak where they are. See the voice question guide; this is an answer-format choice, not a guarantee of better feedback.
Write the answer options as carefully as the question
Here are complete example scales for adapting the questions above:
- Satisfaction: Very dissatisfied / Somewhat dissatisfied / Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied / Somewhat satisfied / Very satisfied.
- Usefulness: Not at all useful / Slightly useful / Moderately useful / Very useful / Extremely useful.
- Ease: Very difficult / Somewhat difficult / Neither easy nor difficult / Somewhat easy / Very easy.
- Clarity: Not at all clear / Slightly clear / Moderately clear / Very clear / Extremely clear.
- Agreement: Strongly disagree / Somewhat disagree / Neither agree nor disagree / Somewhat agree / Strongly agree.
- Confidence: Not at all confident / Slightly confident / Moderately confident / Very confident / Extremely confident.
Keep ordered options in order. Add “Not applicable” when the experience may not apply; it is different from a neutral opinion. “Don’t know” means something else again. Keep skipped answers separate from all three when reviewing results.
The UK Government Analysis Function’s guidance (opens in a new tab) covers matching categories to questions, avoiding overlapping options and giving a clear reference period. For counts or age bands, make sure each possible value belongs in one category. For a task list, leave a route for an answer you missed.
Fix the wording before adding another question
| Wording to reconsider | A more useful version | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| “How great was our helpful support?” | “How satisfied or dissatisfied were you with today’s support conversation?” | Allows a negative or neutral answer |
| “Was the trainer clear and the workbook useful?” | Ask separately about the trainer’s explanation and workbook usefulness | Separates two judgments |
| “Do you use the product regularly?” | “How many times did you use the product in the past seven days?” | Gives a unit and period |
| “Why did you struggle with checkout?” | “What, if anything, made checkout difficult?” | Allows that nothing was difficult |
| “Rate your experience.” | “How easy or difficult was it to book your appointment today?” | Names the task and the measure |
These are illustrative rewrites, not experimentally proven improvements. When ordering the survey, ask a broad evaluation before detailed prompts that might shape it. Pew’s question-order experiment (opens in a new tab) demonstrates how preceding questions can affect an answer.
A five-question survey you can adapt
Suppose a workshop organiser needs to decide what to improve before the next event. Here is a constructed questionnaire, not a report of customer results:
- How satisfied or dissatisfied were you with Saturday’s workshop overall? Use the five satisfaction options above.
- How useful was the session you attended for the task you came to learn? Use the usefulness scale, plus Not applicable.
- How easy or difficult was check-in? Use the ease scale, plus Did not check in.
- What is one thing we should change for the next workshop? Optional open text.
- If you would like a reply, what email address should we use? Optional email, with an explanation that it is used for follow-up.
Keep the overall question first. The other questions distinguish content from arrival logistics, and the open answer gives people room to identify something you missed. If you do not intend to reply, omit question 5 rather than collecting an address by habit.
Try a different short example below: the CSAT starter has a satisfaction score and room for an explanation. It is not the five-question workshop survey; customise it for the interaction you want to understand.
CSAT survey template
Try it here. Nothing is sent or saved.
Check the questionnaire before you send it
Have someone similar to your intended respondents answer the whole form and explain what they thought each question meant. AAPOR recommends pretesting with relevant respondents (opens in a new tab). Also check it on a phone: required fields, answer choices and the thank-you screen should all behave as intended.
Keep labels visible and instructions next to the relevant field. W3C’s form-label guidance (opens in a new tab) explains why controls need identifiable labels; placeholder text alone is not a substitute.
When the answers arrive, look at the distribution of ratings and read the explanations together. A missing answer is not a zero score. If you classify written responses with AI columns, review the source text and correct mistaken labels. The columns do not analyse recordings or attachments.
Need a platform first? Compare survey tools, or use our Google Forms alternatives guide if a specific limitation is blocking your questionnaire. The template gallery provides working starting points for the different tasks above.
