This guide is for the small-business owner or marketer who wants to know what customers think but has never written a survey: the café owner deciding whether to open on Sundays, the software founder choosing which feature to build next, the charity checking whether its newsletter is still read. Surveys are easy to send and easy to get wrong. A badly worded question produces confident-looking numbers that mean very little. A few principles make the difference between data you can act on and data that only confirms what you hoped.
Start with the decision, not the questions
Before writing a single question, finish this sentence: “After this survey, we will decide whether to…”
- …open on Sunday mornings.
- …build the reporting feature or the mobile app first.
- …keep the newsletter weekly or move to monthly.
Every question should help with that decision. If a question is merely interesting, cut it. Short surveys get more responses and more thoughtful ones.
Decide who to ask
The people you survey shape the answers. Asking only your most loyal customers will tell you what fans think. Asking everyone on a mailing list includes people who have not bought in years.
| If you want to know… | Survey… |
|---|---|
| Why people stopped buying | Customers who have not purchased recently |
| How to improve onboarding | People who signed up in the last few weeks |
| What regulars value most | Frequent customers |
| Whether a new service would sell | A mix of current and potential customers |
Write down who you included and who you left out. It will matter when you interpret the results.
Writing good questions
Ask one thing at a time
- Double-barrelled: How satisfied are you with our prices and delivery speed?
- Better: How satisfied are you with our prices? (separate question for delivery)
A customer happy with delivery but unhappy with prices cannot answer the first version honestly.
Avoid leading wording
- Leading: How much did you enjoy our new, improved menu?
- Neutral: How would you rate our new menu?
Words like new, improved, popular and enjoy nudge people towards a positive answer.
Avoid assumptions
- Assumes: Which of our weekend events have you attended?
- Better: Have you attended any of our weekend events? (then ask which, if yes)
Use plain words
Write as you would speak to a customer at the counter. Avoid internal jargon, such as product code names or industry abbreviations.
Ask about behaviour, not just opinion
“Would you use a Sunday opening?” invites polite optimism. “On a typical Sunday morning, where do you usually get coffee?” tells you more about real habits.
Ask about what people have done, not only what they say they might do.
Choosing answer formats
Multiple choice
Good for facts and categories. Make sure options do not overlap and that everyone has an answer, adding “Other” or “None of these” where needed.
- Overlapping: 1 to 5 visits / 5 to 10 visits
- Clean: 1 to 4 visits / 5 to 9 visits / 10 or more
Rating scales
Useful for satisfaction or agreement. Keep the scale consistent through the survey, label both ends clearly, and decide whether to include a neutral midpoint.
Ranking
Helpful for priorities (“Rank these features from most to least useful”), but keep the list short; ranking ten items is tiring.
Open text
One or two open questions often provide the most useful insight: “What is the one thing we could do better?” Too many open questions lower completion rates and take hours to analyse.
Ordering the survey
1. Start easy. A simple, relevant question gets people started.
2. Group related questions. Keep all delivery questions together.
3. General before specific. Ask overall satisfaction before asking about particular features, so the details do not colour the general rating.
4. Sensitive questions last. Age, income and similar details go at the end, and should be optional unless you truly need them.
5. End with an open question. “Anything else you would like to tell us?” catches what you did not think to ask.
Before you send: test it
Ask three or four people who match your audience to complete the survey while you watch, or to send notes afterwards.
- Did any question confuse them?
- Did they want an answer option that was missing?
- How long did it take?
- Did anything feel pushy or too personal?
Fix every problem they find. A pilot run is the cheapest way to avoid wasted responses.
Getting responses
Explain why and how long
A one-line introduction works: “Three minutes, eight questions, to help us decide our winter opening hours.”
Respect privacy
Say how answers will be used and stored. Collect only what you need. If you promise anonymity, do not ask for details that identify people.
Incentives, carefully
A small thank-you, such as entry into a prize draw, can raise responses, but it may attract people who rush through. Check any local rules on prize draws before offering one.
Turning answers into decisions
Look at who answered
Compare respondents with your customer base. If most replies came from long-standing regulars, the results speak for them.
Read the open answers yourself
Group comments into themes by hand for smaller surveys. Quote a few in your summary; they bring numbers to life.
Report the decision
Go back to your opening sentence. Did the results support the decision, argue against it, or show you asked the wrong question? Share what you decided with the customers who took part. It makes them more likely to answer next time.
A worked example: the Sunday opening question
A neighbourhood café wants to decide whether to open on Sunday mornings. Here is a survey built around that one decision.
1. How often do you visit the café? (Less than once a month / 1 to 3 times a month / Weekly / Several times a week)
2. On a typical Sunday morning, where do you usually get coffee or breakfast, if anywhere? (Home / Another café / Bakery / I don’t usually / Other)
3. In the past two months, have you wanted to visit us on a Sunday and found us closed? (Yes / No / Not sure)
4. If we opened on Sundays, which time would suit you best? (8 to 10am / 10am to noon / Noon to 2pm / I wouldn’t visit on Sundays)
5. Is there anything that would make a Sunday visit more appealing? (open text)
Five questions, about two minutes. Each answer feeds the decision: how many regulars want Sunday hours, which time slot to staff, and what competing habits exist. Questions about menu prices or décor, however tempting, belong in a different survey.
Bad and better questions at a glance
| Problem | Bad | Better |
|---|---|---|
| Double-barrelled | Was the staff friendly and quick? | Was the staff friendly? / Was service quick? |
| Leading | Don’t you agree our app is easy to use? | How easy or difficult is our app to use? |
| Assumption | How often do you use our loyalty card? | Do you have our loyalty card? |
| Jargon | How useful is the CX portal? | How useful is the online help centre? |
| Vague time frame | Do you shop with us regularly? | How many times have you shopped with us in the past month? |
Customer survey checklist
- One decision written down before any questions
- Audience chosen deliberately and recorded
- Every question linked to the decision
- One idea per question; neutral wording; no assumptions
- Answer options complete and non-overlapping
- Easy questions first, sensitive ones last and optional
- One or two open questions, not more
- Piloted with three or four real customers
- Purpose, length and data use explained up front
- Results reported back with the decision taken
Takeaway
A useful survey starts with a decision and asks only what helps make it. Choose who to ask on purpose, write short, neutral, single-idea questions, test them on a few customers, and close the loop by sharing what you decided. Fewer, better questions beat a long survey every time.
