100 Great Survey Questions and Examples

Writing great survey questions is probably the most important step when running a consumer insights project.

You’ve spent considerable man-hours deciding on a scope, goal and process for gathering insight (to ensure you get this right, check out our Complete Guide to Survey Creation), but this will all be for nothing if respondents aren’t asked the right questions to reveal actionable intelligence.

Long, rambling, confusing, jargon-filled or biased questions will bore respondents, and your data will suffer as a result. Each and every question you write should either give you actionable data or qualify respondents so they can go on to give you actionable data. A question which serves neither of these purposes increases costs and decreases quality—in other words, a really bad idea!

Examples of Great Survey Questions

To help you get it right first time, we’ve listed 100 of our favourite, tried-and-tested questionnaire and survey questions, and categorised them for you below.

Survey questions for when you want to know who is using your product…

1. Have you ever purchased [your product category]?
2. Have you ever purchased products [your brand]?
3. How often do you purchase from [your brand]?
4. How have you purchased [your brand] previously? For instance, online, in a [your brand] store, at a [your brand] concession stand etc.
5. Which other brands do you also purchase [your product category] from?
6. For what reasons would you choose [your brand] over others available?
7. On a scale of 1-10, how loyal do you feel to [your brand]?
8. Do you feel rewarded for your loyalty to [your brand]?
9. What [product category] services do you regularly use or subscribe to? For instance, delivery services, subscription services etc.

Survey questions for when you want to know who could be using your product…

1. How often do you shop for [product category]?
2. Where would you most frequently choose to shop for [product category]?
3. Which shop do you wish sold [product category]?  
4. How much do you spend on [product category] in [time frame]?
5. Do you recognise this company logo?
6. Which of the following brand logos do you recognise?
7. Which factors have put you off purchasing from [your brand] in the past?
8. What could [your brand] do differently to encourage you to purchase from them?
9. What worries you most about [your brand]?
10. What excites you most about [your brand]?

Survey questions for when you want to know when consumers use your product…

1. What is the biggest difficulty you’ve faced in achieving [x] today?
2. What problem does [product category] solve for you?
3. What’s the most important factor when deciding to buy [product category]?
4. Which [product category] products do you use?  
5. How, if at all, is your life improved by [your brand]?
6. If [your brand] ceased to exist, what would you buy instead?
7. What could [your brand] do to fulfill your needs better?
8. What were you using before you started using [your brand]?

Also consider using our Jobs to be Done survey template, which requires just a few details from you in order to populate an optimised, fully pre-designed survey which is ready to send to consumers straight away.

Survey questions for when you want to know what consumers think of your products…

1. What do you like most about [your brand]?
2. What do you like least about [your brand]?
3. What’s the one thing [your brand] should never stop doing?
4. How has [your brand] exceeded your expectations in [time frame]?
5. How has [your brand] failed to meet your expectations in [time frame]?
6. What is your main frustration, if any, when using [your brand]?
7. If [your brand] was a person, how would you describe that person?
8. If [your brand] was a person, do you think you’d be friends with them?
9. Would you like to work for [your brand]?
10. What values do you think [your brand] upholds?
11. Do you think [your brand] makes a positive impact in the world?
12. Would the world miss [your brand] if it ceased to exist?
13. Are you proud to [your brand]?
14. Do you trust [your brand]?
15. Do you feel media coverage of [your brand] has been mostly positive or mostly negative in the past year?

Survey questions for when you want to know what consumers think of your competitors…

1. When thinking about companies that provide [product category], which companies come to mind?
2. When thinking about companies that provide [product category], which one comes to mind first?
3. Which company/companies have you purchased [product category] from in [time frame]?
4. What one word would you use to describe [competitor brand]?
5. What is the primary reason you would choose [your brand] over [competitor brand]?
6. What other products/services/features would you like to see [your brand] offer?
7. What do other manufacturers of [product type] do better than [your brand]?
8. Which of the following brands do you recognise?
9. Which of the following brands make you most happy?
10. Do you think [your brand] is more of a leader or a follower in [product category]?

You can also use our Competitor Intelligence survey template or the market analysis template, which utilise a few of the questions above to give you the insight needed for an edge over your fiercest competitors.

Survey questions for when you want to know how much consumers are willing to pay for your product…

1. At what price would you consider [product category] to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it?
2. At what price would you consider [product category] to be priced so low that you would feel the quality couldn’t be very good?
3. At what price would you consider [product category] to be getting expensive, so that you would have to give some thought to buying it?
4. At what price would you consider [product category] to be a bargain – a great buy for the money?
5. Which other products do you feel do the same job, just as well, as [your brand]?
6. Who offers the best prices for [product category]?
7. What doubts did you have/would you have before purchasing [your brand]?

Survey questions for when you want to know why consumers like or dislike your creative…

1. Do you identify with any of the people appearing in this advert?
2. Who else would you like to see appear in this advert?
3. Do you feel like you’re the intended audience for this advert?
4. Do you agree with the way the female/male character represents the population at large?
5. How would you like to see [audience type] better represented?
6. Do you recognise which brand this audio clip/video still/strapline advertises?
7. What questions do you wish you could ask [your brand] after watching this advert?
8. If you could change one thing about the advert you’ve just seen/heard, what would it be?
9. What emotion does this advert most elicit in you?
10. Did the advert capture your attention?
11. Which of these images do you most enjoy/recognise?
12. What message do you think the advert was attempting to convey?
13. Do you feel more positive or more negative towards brand X now, compared to before you saw this advert?
14. What action do you think this advert is asking you to take?
15. On a scale of 1-10, how likely would you be to take this action?
16. Would you share this advert with family/friends on [social network]?

Survey questions for when you want to know how your brand strategy is performing…

1. Which of these products/brands are you planning to buy in the next 6 months?
2. Please rank these factors in order of importance when determining which product to buy.
3. Please rank the following brands in order of how likely you are to consider them for your next purchase.
4. Have you or someone you know ever purchased from [your brand]?
5. Have you seen, read or heard anything in the news and on social media in the last month that affected how you view [your brand]?
6. How could [your brand] have responded to the recent news report that would have made sure you remained loyal to them?
7. Given all that you know about [your brand], what do you think their key message is?
8. Which of these words do you think best represents [your brand]?
9. What one word would you use to describe [your brand]?
10. Do you feel generally positive or negative about [your brand]?

The Brand Tracker tool is an easy way to gain comprehensive data on your brand strategy’s performance in the market.

Survey questions for when you want to know whether customers would recommend you…

1. How would you describe [your brand] to a friend?
2. What type of person would you be most likely to recommend [your brand] to?
3. How likely would you be to recommend [your brand] to a friend or colleague?
4. What were the main reasons you gave that score?
5. How likely would you be to recommend [competitor brand] to a friend or colleague?
6. Do you feel [your brand] is well-suited to your needs?

The Attest dashboard will calculate NPS for you, all you need to do is select the NPS question type when creating your own survey.

Survey questions for when you want to know where you should be advertising…

1. How frequently do you [listen to podcasts/own a smart speaker/ travel on the London Underground (etc.)]?
2. What adverts can you recall seeing/hearing while doing this activity?
3. Where would you most like to hear from [product category] brand?
4. How do you feel when you see or hear adverts that are personalised (for instance they mention your name, reference your location or the weather)?
5. How would you find a company like [your brand] on Google?
6. Where did you first hear about [your brand]?
7. Where would you go first to discover products/solutions in [product category]?
8. What’s the best advert you’ve seen or heard in the last month?
9. Where did you see or hear this advert?

For more advice on writing great survey questions, and a guide to the rest of the survey creation process, check out our Guide to Survey Creation. If you’re looking for research that delves deeper into your target customers, take a look at our 13 demographic survey questions for some pointers.

And remember, Attest’s brand tracker survey template can help connect your brand to over 100 million consumers across 80 countries – in just 3 simple steps.  If you need answers today, get in touch to learn how we can help.