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28 of our favorite customer feedback questions
Here at Hotjar, we strongly believe that what’s best for your users and customers is best for your business. But how do you know what’s best for your users?
You have to ask them.
Last updated
10 Nov 2021
Customer surveys are the most direct way to gather constructive feedback from the people who know the most about the strengths and weaknesses of your products and services.
We’ve written other articles on website feedback, troubleshooting using surveys, post-event survey questions, and even general survey questions before, but here we wanted to round up all of our best customer feedback questions in one place. Use them to survey your customers and find out what they like, and what they still need, from you.
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28 customer feedback questions
Here is a list of 28 customer feedback questions we recommend you use to get closer to your customers and their needs. Keep reading past the list if you want to know more about why or when you should ask each one.
How would you describe yourself in one sentence?
What is your main goal for using this website/product?
What, if anything, is preventing you from achieving that goal?
What is your greatest concern about [product/brand]?
What changed for you after you started using our product?
Where did you first hear about us?
Have you used our [product or service] before?
Why did you choose to use our [product or service] over other options?
Have you used a similar [product or service] before?
How do you use our product/service?
How can we make this page better?
What’s the ONE thing our website is missing?
What, if anything, is stopping you from [taking action] today?
What are your main concerns or questions about [product or service]?
Thanks for [taking action]! How are you planning to use [product or service]?
How would you describe the buying experience?
Do you feel our [product or service] is worth the cost?
What convinced you to buy the product?
What challenges are you trying to solve?
What nearly stopped you from buying?
What do you like most about our [product or service]?
What do you like least?
What feature/option could we add to make your experience better?
How could we have gone above and beyond?
Net Promoter Score (NPS): how likely are you to recommend our products?
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): how satisfied are you with our product/services?
Customer Effort Score (CES): how easy did (organization) make it for you to solve your issue?
Is there anything you’d like to add?
Customer feedback questions that help you understand your customers
First of all, you can’t help your customers if you don’t know who they are and what they want in the first place. Asking your customers about themselves helps you gather psychographic data that can be used to create user personas: semi-fictional characters based on the real people who use your product. These personas come in handy for more targeted marketing and for improving user experience.
1. How would you describe yourself in one sentence?
This prompt is designed to help you gather demographic data about your customers. The question is open-ended, but you can encourage your respondents by giving them an example of what you are expecting (e.g., “I am a 35-year-old editor based in the UK who enjoys writing articles about customer feedback.”
2. What is your main goal for using this website/product?
What do your customers want? Use this question to determine why people have turned to your product and what their expectations are.
3. What, if anything, is preventing you from achieving that goal?
What challenges are the customers facing, and are you doing enough to help them overcome those challenges?
4. What is your greatest concern about [product/brand]?
What is stopping your customers, or potential customers, from handing over their hard-earned money? Their answers can give you a window into the barriers and objections you might need to address to convince them to progress, and also point to gaps in the services you offer or a lack of information on your website. Use this information to address your visitors’ concerns head on—which, in turn, should help you improve conversion rates.
5. What changed for you after you started using our product?
This will only apply to existing users of your product or service, but it helps you understand the details of how your product helps customers get their job done—and you can feature their statements in your testimonials to help convince other prospective customers to join you.
Customer feedback questions to improve your marketing efforts
Marketing can be time- and money-intensive, so it helps to use your customers’ feedback to make sure your efforts are effective and well-targeted.
6. Where did you first hear about us?
Web analytics data can tell you where traffic is coming from, but it can’t identify the driver that ultimately led someone to type the name of your site into the URL bar. Customers may have heard about your product from a friend or on a podcast or perhaps on social media—the only way to collect that data is to ask directly.
7. Have you used our [product or service] before?
This helps flesh out the customer’s relationship history with your company. Are they a long-time user of your services, or is this their first spin? That information can inform the rest of their survey answers by letting you know their familiarity and expertise with your offerings.
8. Why did you choose to use our [product or service] over other options?
What sets you apart from your competitors? This helps you gauge how you’re competing with others in your customers’ mind on price, service, solutions offered—and you might even discover a competitive advantage you were not aware of.
9. Have you used a similar [product or service] before?
Learn whether the customer has used one of your competitors previously or whether this is their first experience with you. Knowing their experience level with your product—and others like it—can add context to their other survey answers.
10. How do you use our product/service?
Learning about how the customer uses your product on a practical level can give you insight into the most important features that you offer. It might also open your eyes to unique use cases you may not have been aware of.
Customer feedback questions to ask on a web page
In general, you want a web page to be attractive, intuitive, and helpful for customers. You can use on-page surveys (that pop-up or slide-in from the side of the page) to poll customers on their opinions, which will help you improve your web page and the overall customer experience.
Pro tip: to take this a step further, you can run a website survey in conjunction with, or as a follow-up to, usability testing sessions that help you dig deeper into potential usability and clarity issues with a handful of your customers.
11. How can we make this page better?
Use a one-question pop-up poll to gather feedback on specific web pages. Because this question is completely open-ended, meaning that you are not restricting your users to a yes/no or multiple-option answer, you may receive suggestions or feedback you hadn’t considered.
12. What’s the ONE thing our website is missing?
Even if a customer is pleased with your site, there is always room for improvement. Use this question to help identify holes in your existing services and highlight areas where you can build and expand.
13. What, if anything, is stopping you from [taking action] today?
Use a pop-up to query potential customers about their purchasing reservations. Do they need more information? Are they intimidated by the price tag?
14. What are your main concerns or questions about [product or service]?
This is a variation on question #3 above—the difference is this one is asked in the context of the website itself. Ideally, your web page will answer all of the potential customer’s questions and concerns so that they can buy with confidence; answers to this question will let you know if any important information is vague or hard for users to find.
15. Thanks for [taking action]! How are you planning to use [product or service]?
Ask this question in a post-purchase survey to get a better view of the customer’s plans for your product. This will give you some insight into why people are buying your goods or services, and it may help you identify niche use cases you could leverage further.
Customer feedback survey questions to ask when a product isn’t selling
When your product is underperforming, turn to your customers to find out what you’re doing wrong and how you can improve. It’s difficult to ask people why they aren’t buying your product, but you can get a sense of your target audience’s needs: email an open-ended survey to recent customers to learn more about how they felt about purchasing your product.
16. How would you describe the buying experience?
One possible reason for a dip in sales is that the buying process is too confusing or onerous and is driving potential customers away. Ask existing customers about their buying experiences to identify areas for improvement for all of your potential ones.
17. Do you feel our [product or service] is worth the cost?
Another major sticking point for potential customers is cost. If your offerings are perceived as poor value for money, you may need to reevaluate your pricing structure or work to make your value clearer/more explicit.
18. What convinced you to buy the product?
What were the hooks that persuaded your customers to take the plunge? Try to understand these driving forces, and then replicate and emphasize them.
19. What challenges are you trying to solve?
What are the major issues that are causing customers to turn to your product for help? Knowing this can help you make sure you are meeting their expectations.
20. What nearly stopped you from buying?
Finally, what are the barriers or obstacles that might deter potential customers from following through? You want to identify and try to minimize these issues.
Customer feedback questions to improve a product or service
Ask your customers for honest feedback about your actual products and services to learn what’s pleasing them and what isn’t working. Continue to refine and improve your offerings to better meet customer needs.
21. What do you like most about our [product or service]?
It’s always good to know what parts of your products are pleasing customers. Make sure to maintain or expand on those attributes in future product iterations.
22. What do you like least?
Likewise, it’s important to identify areas for improvement.
23. What feature/option could we add to make your experience better?
Even satisfied customers may have ideas for new features or ways to improve your product.
24. How could we have gone above and beyond?
Learn what would make your customers sit up and say “wow!” These suggestions may not be obtainable, but they’re a good window into what delights your customers.
Customer feedback questions to measure the customer experience
The concept of “a good customer experience” can look a bit intangible and difficult to measure—and this is exactly where the next three questions come in.
25. Net Promoter Score (NPS): how likely are you to recommend our products?
Studies have shown that customers’ willingness or reluctance to recommend your product to friends and family is an excellent indicator of their level of satisfaction.
Ask customers to rank, on a scale of 0-10, how likely they are to recommend your products. This information will allow you to calculate your customers’ Net Promoter Score, or NPS.
26. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): how satisfied are you with our product/services?
How happy are customers with your product? Instead of posing this as an open-ended question, you could also ask “Are you satisfied with our product?” in a pop-up poll to calculate a customer satisfaction (CSAT) score.
27. Customer Effort Score (CES): how easy did (organization) make it for you to solve your issue?
In general, customers want to spend the least amount of effort when completing a task or solve a problem. When you ask them to score how much effort it took to complete a task/solve an issue, you get a clear picture of where to improve your processes moving forward.
One final question
At the end of multiple-question surveys, we like to add one final bonus question.
28. Is there anything you’d like to add?
Always give your customers a chance to offer feedback at the end of a survey. Many people will leave this section blank, but a surprising number of people will have a burst of insight or a helpful answer to a question you never even thought to ask.
Our biggest survey tip is simply to encourage people to be honest. Really emphasize that you want them to be brutally, 100% honest, and that all feedback is helpful. This will free them up to tell you what they really think.
Final tips: getting the customer feedback you need
Customer feedback is extremely valuable because it gives your customers a voice and an opportunity to share what parts of your business are working or not working for them. However, to get reliable and useful information, you must ask the right questions in the right way. Here are four final tips:
Know what information you want to collect
Before you even start writing any of the questions, pin down exactly what you’re hoping to achieve. Do you want to:
Know how people experience a specific website page or customer process?
Improve your marketing techniques?
Brainstorm new services to offer your existing user base?
Your goals will dictate the kind of questions you need to ask customers.
Keep your survey short
Filling out a feedback survey can be a big ask for busy customers, so keep yours as brief as possible. You probably won’t be able to ask every question you would like, so prioritize the information that is most useful to you.
Pick the right format
There are two major formats of customer surveys: long, multiple-question surveys and very short on-page polls.
On-page polls typically consist of only one or two questions and are perfect for collecting a snapshot of information about a specific page or process. Because they take almost no time to complete, response is usually high.
Longer surveys help you collect more in-depth information, but the more questions you ask, the fewer responses you are likely to receive. As a rule of thumb, ask as few questions as possible to get the information you need.
Test the survey before sending it to customers
If you are new to customer surveys, start off with a single-question on-page poll. Then, work your way up to longer multiple-question surveys.
If you are sending out a longer survey, ask coworkers or other connections to make sure that it’s well worded. The questions should be clear and concise so that customers know exactly what kind of information you’re looking for.
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