Satisfaction survey: what it is, sample questions and how to create one for free with Google Forms
Finding out what your customers think costs nothing. Here are the questions, scales and steps to ask them
A satisfaction survey is a short questionnaire that measures how happy your customers are with your product, your service or a specific experience.
The most widely used are NPS (would you recommend us?), CSAT (are you satisfied?) and CES (was it easy?). You can create them for free with Google Forms and send them by email.
The key is to ask little, at the right moment, and to act on the answers.
Here are the types, sample questions and how to create one step by step in Google Forms. Plus, how to get more responses.
What is a satisfaction survey?
It is a tool for finding out what your customers think of what you offer them.
It measures their level of satisfaction with closed questions, which can be compared, and one or two open ones, to understand the why.
That level depends on many factors: product quality, price, how customers are treated, speed or how easy it is to buy.
A survey is no substitute for talking to your customers. But it gives you data from many of them at once and lets you see whether you are improving over time.
What is a satisfaction survey for?
A satisfaction survey helps you make decisions based on data, not hunches. With it you can:
- Spot what is going wrong before the customer leaves for a competitor.
- Find out what your customers value most and highlight it in your communication.
- Measure the effect of a change to your product, your website or your customer service.
- Find your most satisfied customers and ask them for a review or a referral.
- Get to know your audience better so you can segment your campaigns.
What’s more, asking sends a message in itself. Customers feel their opinion matters, especially if they later see that you have changed something because of it.
Types of satisfaction survey
There are three metrics used in almost every industry. Each one answers a different question.
| Type | What it measures | Typical question | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| NPS (Net Promoter Score) | Loyalty and likelihood to recommend | How likely are you to recommend us to a friend? | From 0 to 10 |
| CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) | Satisfaction with something specific | How would you rate your experience with our service? | From 1 to 5 |
| CES (Customer Effort Score) | How easy it is to get something done | Was it easy to resolve your query? | From 1 to 7 |
| Open-ended survey | Reasons and suggestions for improvement | What could we improve? | Free text |
In NPS, people who answer 9 or 10 are promoters, those who give 7 or 8 are passives and those who answer 0 to 6 are detractors.
NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
CSAT is calculated as the percentage of people who answer 4 or 5 out of the total.
CES is usually given as the average of the answers.
The Likert scale
The Likert scale measures the degree of agreement with a statement.
It is the most common scale in satisfaction surveys and was created by the psychologist Rensis Likert in 1932.
| Value | Response |
|---|---|
| 1 | Strongly disagree |
| 2 | Disagree |
| 3 | Neither agree nor disagree |
| 4 | Agree |
| 5 | Strongly agree |
It is used with statements such as “The checkout process was simple” or “The support team solved my problem”. It can have 5 or 7 levels.
Always use the same scale throughout the survey.
If you switch from one question to the next, you confuse respondents and you won’t be able to compare the results.
Ask your customers right in their inbox
Send your survey to your whole list with a Mailrelay newsletter.
Sample questions for your satisfaction survey
These are questions you can copy and adapt. Only choose the ones you will use to make a decision.
| Topic | Question | Answer type |
|---|---|---|
| Overall satisfaction | Overall, how satisfied are you with our service? | Scale from 1 to 5 |
| Recommendation | How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague? | Scale from 0 to 10 |
| Product | Did the product meet your expectations? | Likert scale |
| Customer service | How would you rate the service you received? | Scale from 1 to 5 |
| Ease | Was it easy to find what you were looking for on our website? | Scale from 1 to 7 |
| Price | How would you rate the value for money? | Scale from 1 to 5 |
| Improvement | What is the first thing you would change? | Free text |
| Reason | Why did you give that score? | Free text |
A good structure for a short survey: one satisfaction or recommendation question, two or three about specific aspects and an open question at the end.
How do you create a satisfaction survey with Google, step by step?
Google Forms is free with a Google account and is the easiest way to create an online survey. These are the steps.
1. Go to Google Forms
Go to forms.google.com with your Google account. You can also create a form from Google Drive with “New” and “Google Forms”.
2. Start from blank or from a template
The template gallery includes templates for customer feedback and event feedback.
For a short survey, it is usually quicker to start from blank.
3. Write the title and description
Add a clear title and, in the description, explain in one sentence what the survey is for and how long it takes to complete.
4. Add the questions
Click the “+” button to add each question and choose its type.
For a satisfaction survey, the most useful are “Linear scale”, “Rating”, “Multiple choice”, “Multiple choice grid” and “Paragraph”.
Mark only the key questions as required. The more required questions there are, the more people drop out.
5. Review the settings
In “Settings”, decide whether you want to collect respondents’ email addresses or make the survey anonymous. Also decide whether each person can respond only once.
6. Customize the design
Use the palette icon to change the color and font, and add a header image with your logo so people recognize it.
7. Send the survey and analyze the responses
Click “Send” to copy the link or the code to embed it on your website.
In the “Responses” tab you’ll see the results in charts and can export them to Google Sheets.
How to get more responses
A good survey is useless if nobody answers it. These practices increase the response rate.
Keep it short
Five to ten questions is enough. State at the start how long it takes, for example “2 minutes”, and stick to it.
Choose the right moment
Ask right after the experience you want to measure: when the order arrives, after closing a query or at the end of a course.
The later you ask, the less they remember.
Explain why you want it
Say what you are going to do with the answers. People respond more when they know their opinion will be put to use.
Offer something in return, carefully
A discount or a prize draw increases responses. But if the incentive is too high, you may attract quick, insincere answers.
Send a reminder
A second email a few days later, only to those who haven’t responded, usually brings in quite a few more responses.
If you improve something thanks to the survey, tell your customers. Next time, more of them will respond.
More responses with the right email
Schedule your survey email and its reminder with Mailrelay’s free account.
How to send your satisfaction survey by email
Email is the most common channel for sending a survey, because it reaches people who are already your customers and you can choose the timing.
Copy your Google form’s link and put it in a prominent button in your newsletter. Add some text that says what the customer gains by responding and how long it takes.
The one-click survey
For quick questions, you can put the question in the email itself along with a row of buttons with the answers, for example from 1 to 5.
Each button leads to a different link: a thank-you page or the full form with the answer already selected.
Answering takes just one click, so many more people respond.
With your email tool’s click tracking, you can see how many people clicked each option.
How Mailrelay helps you
Mailrelay doesn’t have its own survey builder, but it helps you get your surveys to your customers and make the most of them.
Send your Google Forms survey link to your whole list or to a specific segment, with a polished design and no coding required.
And schedule the reminder for those who haven’t responded.
With the answers, you can segment your campaigns using custom fields to send each group what really interests them.
The free account includes up to 80,000 emails a month and 20,000 contacts, with automations and human support.
Frequently asked questions about satisfaction surveys
These are the most common questions when preparing a satisfaction survey.
How many questions should a satisfaction survey have?
Between five and ten. If you only want to measure NPS or CSAT, one closed question and one open question are enough.
Is Google Forms free?
Yes. All you need is a Google account. You can create unlimited surveys and receive responses at no cost.
Should a satisfaction survey be anonymous?
It depends on what you’re looking for. Anonymous surveys get more honest answers.
Identified ones let you reply to each customer and cross-reference the data with their history.
If you collect personal data, explain what you will use it for, as required by the GDPR.
How often should you run a satisfaction survey?
Surveys about a specific experience, after each one.
General ones, such as NPS, once or twice a year, so as not to tire your customers.
What is the Likert scale?
It is a scale that measures the degree of agreement with a statement, usually with 5 levels, from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.
Turn responses into better campaigns
Listen to your customers and send them what really interests them.
Further reading
Market research
How to do it step by step, with a template and surveys of your own customers.
Customer loyalty
What it is and how to get your customers to buy from you again.
CX or customer experience
What it is and how to measure the experience your customers have with your brand.
Newsletter
What a newsletter is and how to use it to talk to your customers.
Jose Argudo
CMO at Mailrelay. Writes about email marketing, copywriting and conversion for small businesses and entrepreneurs.