35 feedback questions to ask customers in 2024

Customer feedback is gold. When analyzed correctly, this priceless information can help streamline the customer experience, boost marketing efforts, power lead generation, drive retention…the list goes on and on.

However, just like precious metals, not all customer feedback is created equal. Its quality depends on many factors, including your ability to ask questions. The better you structure your query, the more high-quality feedback you will receive.

Let's take a closer look at creating feedback questions to gain valuable insight into your customers’ experience of your products and services.

While your team would appreciate a five-page narrative from each customer, extensive feedback is tough to gather. You need to diversify your questions according to customer segments and your goals.

A great survey or questionnaire is a mix of question types. This catches and holds the customer's attention without taking up too much of their time.

Yes/no, scale, and rating questions

These questions are easy to answer and usually require only a couple of clicks. Answers to them are easy to review.

• Yes/no: Do you play computer games?

• Scale: On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company to others?

• Rating: How would you rate our customer service?

Multiple-choice questions

Similar to the yes/no format, multiple-choice feedback questions are easy to analyze and only require one click to answer.

While the number of answers is limited, you still get more information than through yes/no queries.

Open-ended questions

These questions require more time to answer than multiple-choice or yes/no questions. Not all customers are willing to spend time answering them, so you may want to keep the number of these questions to a minimum.

Some examples of open-ended questions are:

• What would you like to change about our product?

• What was the biggest problem you had with our product?

It's much easier to ask a feedback question than to receive an answer. Customers are often reluctant to leave feedback, especially if the process seems time-consuming. Yet, 77% of 5,028 consumers across eight countries favor a brand that asks for feedback.

It's up to the company to ask for feedback in the most effective way possible without overwhelming the consumer. Otherwise, you may end up with low-quality information and frustrated responders.

Give yourself the best chance of receiving quality answers with our top tips.

Ask for honesty

You don't want customers or clients to be nice. You want them to be open about the pros and cons of your products. That's why you need to communicate your desire for honesty.

A customer should understand that leaving an honest review (even if it's negative) wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings. Just the opposite, it can help the company develop and improve customer experience.

Plan for improvements

Instead of focusing entirely on the past (e.g. How did you work with our product?), ask the customer to think about future improvements (e.g. What can we change to be more effective?).

If a customer answers the "future" questions, they can provide valuable information for products or services that you are yet to develop.

Be specific

If you have an opportunity to communicate with the consumer more than once, ask general questions in the first interaction. Next time, dig deeper and ask specific non-leading questions. 

Instead of asking "What did you like about the product?" try:

• On a scale from 1 (very difficult) to 5 (very easy), how easy or difficult was it to use the interface?

• Can you describe how you worked with the specific feature?

The more precise you get with questions, the more concerned and interested you sound. This can give consumers an additional incentive to complete your survey.

Choose the right customers

Sending out the same survey or follow-up questions to all your customers could be counterproductive. Divide your customers into segments before asking for feedback. Examples are:

• First-time customers

• Long-term customers

• Customers with the highest/lowest lifetime value (LTV)

• Customers who haven't purchased anything in a while

You need to design your feedback questions according to each segment's pain points and success or experience with your products.

Keep it short

Marketing experts love long surveys. Customers don't. It's always better to send several short surveys (over a set period) than to overwhelm customers with 50 feedback questions at once.

Customers are constantly pounded by emails, messages, and other digital requests. When you consider the proverbial eight-second consumer attention span, it’s clear that a long survey isn't likely to yield results.

You can divide survey questions into categories and send one category at a time. Alternatively, you could choose one question from each category.

When designing feedback questions, think of the goals you want to accomplish. Each goal is one category.

Use our example questions and categories as an incentive to form your own list of questions.

Improve products or services

1. What is the one thing this product is missing?

2. How likely are you to recommend the product to others?

3. What is one thing you loved most about the product or service?

4. How difficult or easy was the product to use?

5. Are you planning to use the product (or service) in the future or not?

6. Which features were your least favorite? Explain your answer. 

7. Which features were your favorite? Explain your answer. 

8. How do you feel about the product price?

Evaluate customer success

When your sales and marketing teams succeed, customers buy products and pay for services. When customers succeed, they become loyal, increase LTV, and recommend your company to others.

One of the few ways to discover if a customer succeeded with your product is to ask the right feedback questions.

9. How did the product affect your lifestyle/work?

10. Did the product simplify your work?

11. How much do you agree or disagree that the product saved you time?

12. How much do you agree or disagree that the service saved you money?

13. What challenges did the product solve for you?

14. What metrics did this product improve for your business?

15. How can we make this service more effective for your needs?

16. Would you like to speak to a customer success manager?

Learn more about the customer 

According to McKinsey, 71% of US consumers demand personalization while 76% feel frustrated when the company doesn't provide it.

Use every opportunity to learn more about your customers so that you can personalize their experience.

17. What is your name/job title/education/marital status?

18. Which social media channels do you use the most?

19. Do you use free trials before buying a product?

20. What problems do you want to solve with this product?

21. Which channel of communication do you prefer?

22. What do you like to do in your free time?

23. How long have you been using our services?

24. What is your employment status?

25. What industry are you in?

Consider making the majority of these questions multiple-choice. While people love talking about themselves, they get frustrated typing the same information over and over again.

Evaluate customer support efforts

A 2022 survey of 2,000 US consumers revealed that 64% of people go to a competitor after a negative customer experience.

Customer support plays a major role in improving customer experience. Ask your customers for feedback after they finish working with your support team.

26. Did we answer your question/solve your problem?

27. How can we improve our support efforts?

28. What channel would you like to use for support in the future?

29. On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate customer support?

30. How satisfied are you with the customer support response time?

31. Would you like to have a personal customer support manager?

Create an opportunity for further communications

After you ask all the relevant questions about products, services, and experiences, find out how willing a customer is to answer a few more feedback questions or hear from you in the future.

32. Can we contact you to follow up on this survey?

33. Would you be willing to help us by taking a similar survey in the future?

34. Are you open to discussing upgrades for products and services you use?

35. Would you like to receive helpful content related to using these products and services?

Feedback questions are often the only way to receive valuable information from the client or customer. With the right volume of data, you can perform in-depth analysis and gain valuable insight into your company's operations.

Take the time to prepare consumer surveys and identify opportunities to ask for some short feedback. You may be surprised at how willing some customers are to share their opinion about your company.

Good customer feedback questions evaluate the customer's satisfaction with the product or service. The best surveys use a mix of question types.

Some example feedback questions are:

• How did the product help solve your problem?

• How likely are you to recommend this product to others?

• How satisfied are you with our service?

• How easy or not did we make it for you to solve your issue?

You can measure product feedback by evaluating such customer metrics as:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

• Customer Effort Score (CES)

A product feedback survey is a list of questions that evaluate how happy or unhappy a customer is with the product and their experience with your company.