Explore different types of surveys
SurveyMonkey has templates that include various types of questions, no matter who you’re trying to reach.
Gain a deeper understanding of your audience with different types of surveys
Surveys can help you generate the data you need to make smarter business decisions. By exploring the different types of surveys available, you can be sure to take the right approach to getting the information you need to be successful.
Your customers are key to your success. Gain insight and grow your business with online customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT). Use CSAT surveys to learn what your customers are thinking and anticipate their moves.
The survey purpose of CSAT
CSAT surveys are a great tool to use to gain quick insight on how satisfied your customers are with your product or service. It is also a creative way to ask your customers how they think your business can improve their customer experience in the future. And importantly, it lets them know their feedback is a value to your company’s success.
Advantages of customer satisfaction surveys
There are many advantages to CSAT surveys. Let’s start with the most important – improving customer relationships. No matter the industry, customer loyalty will always be one of your most valuable assets. After all, without customers your company could not survive. With thoughtful customer satisfaction surveys, you send the message to your customers that you care about their experiences and want to continue to provide them with the best products and service as possible.
Another advantage of CSAT surveys is that they accurately determine areas for improvement that can optimize a customer’s experience. By giving a customer the opportunity to share feedback, you’re proving that you want their experience to be positive and that you intend to improve.
Sample questions for customer satisfaction surveys
CSAT surveys often focus on customers feelings and thoughts, and therefore asks questions like:
- How satisfied are you with our service?
- Were you satisfied with your experience with us?
- What could we have improved on today?
Asking open-ended questions gives your customers an opportunity to speak openly and share their thoughts. You may even be surprised with some of the feedback you receive.
Resources:
Check out our Customer Satisfaction Survey Template
Get the guide for Running a Customer Feedback Progra
Use online market research surveys as a fast way to determine the optimal price for a new product, improve customer retention, or measure awareness and understanding with customers.
It’s easy to get caught up spending most of your time paying attention to customers and their needs. This could mean that your employees get overlooked. Though it may not be intentional, employees can feel ignored and neglected.
The survey purpose of employee satisfaction
Using employee satisfaction surveys as a tool to check in with your staff will not only engage them, but it will make them feel like their voices matter. Plus, employee surveys can also help you identify opportunities for improvement within your organization.
Advantages of employee satisfaction surveys
Employee satisfaction surveys provide employers with direct feedback from their employees. It also helps measure employee sentiment for job satisfaction and professional development. Additionally, surveys provide a safeguard for the talent within your business. Employee surveys help flag any potential problems, so you can take swift action to prevent declines in employee engagement, morale, and productivity.
Instead of guessing what the current social climate of your organization is, get direct feedback from your employees with surveys. Ultimately, you’ll be able to anticipate and prevent employee turnover. The feedback you receive can be used to improve in the areas that need it, and positive feedback can be used as a tool to recruit others.
Sample questions for employee satisfaction surveys
Remember that these surveys capture your employees’ thoughts and feelings, so ask questions that get to the bottom of how employees feel:
- How meaningful is your work?
- In a typical week, how often do you feel stressed at work?
- How likely are you to look for another job outside the company?
These questions encourage your employees to respond honestly about how satisfied they are with their jobs. In turn, you can make any necessary changes needed to keep employees happy.
Resources:
Check out our Employee Satisfaction Survey template
Explore the AI-powered enterprise solution for Employee Experience by Momentive, the maker of SurveyMonkey
Read this case study on how to build trust with your employees
Healthcare professionals are just looking to provide the best possible care for their patients and healthcare surveys can be a powerful tool for anyone in the medical profession.
The purpose of healthcare surveys
Online healthcare surveys can do a variety of things but the goal is to support patient-provider communication. They use surveys to identify patient demographics, behaviors, and health issues.
Advantages of healthcare surveys
Using surveys in healthcare is a great way to gather information that you would not be able to obtain through lab tests and conversations. While some patients may be reluctant to provide feedback, having the assurance of knowing that the surveys are confidential and HIPAA compliant allows them to answer the questions honestly and with confidence.
You can use healthcare surveys for a number of reasons and are all beneficial to your practice, such as:
- Patient satisfaction—Patients can describe their visit and the quality of their experience with the doctors, support staff, and the facilities.
- Employees and staff—Everyone in your organization can stay engaged and their feedback contributes to providing quality care to the patients.
- Medical research—Used to collect statistics about a specific audience or population or compare habits between patient groups.
- Benchmarks—Helpful for tracking the progress of any goal you set like improving patient satisfaction or creating a safer, more inclusive workspace for your employees.
Sample questions for healthcare surveys
Questions that you can expect to see on a healthcare surveys could include:
- On a scale of one to 10, how healthy do you consider yourself to be?
- How often do you get a health checkup?
- Do you have any chronic diseases?
- Do you have any hereditary conditions/diseases?
Resources:
Check out templates for CAHPS® surveys
Explore the AI-powered enterprise solutions that include HIPAA-compliant features by Momentive
Learn how to elevate the patient experience with this guide
Marketing surveys take a broad approach to capturing customer feedback dealing with the “four P’s” of marketing including product development, pricing, promotions, and place.
The survey purpose for marketing
Marketing research covers the conception, development, placement and evolution of a product or service, including its growing audience and its branding.
Advantages of marketing surveys
Marketing surveys offer you the opportunity to generate ongoing feedback from your customers throughout the life cycle of a product or service. Consistently capturing insights helps you avoid wasting time and money—you get customer-generated guidance on product, services, features, and other aspects of your business such as branding and packaging.
Sample questions for marketing surveys
Questions within marketing surveys are intended to dig deeper into why someone makes a decision about a product or service. Here are some common questions:
- Which of the following best describes your role in the purchase process?
- What is the main reason you chose X?
- How are you primarily using X?
- What type of business do you represent?
- What is your role?
- What are the main problems you want to solve with X?
Resources:
Get the ultimate guide on Using Surveys for Content Marketing
Not to be confused with marketing research, market research surveys help you to get the answers you need by collecting and analyzing quantitative data about a specific market.
The purpose of market research surveys
This type of survey would be used if you are trying to launch a product and want to find out what the needs of that market are.
Advantages of market research surveys
In addition to being online—making market research surveys affordable to create and distribute to your market—they are also a reliable way to understand and collect data. They can be used to access key demographic information and find out other information such as what customers like about your brand and what your market needs at the moment.
Sample questions for market research surveys
If you are conducting market research to test a new product, you might ask questions like:
- Age and geographic location
- How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?
- Did you consider any of our competitors? Who and why?
- How long have you been a customer?
- How much money do you usually spend on X products?
- What’s the maximum you’d pay for X?
Resources:
Explore the AI-powered Momentive solutions that help you gain market insights
Do your own market research and get tips from this Market Research Ultimate Guide
Brand awareness describes consumer recognition of your product or service. The more familiar people are with your brand, the more likely they are to support your business.
The purpose of brand surveys
Using surveys as a way to find out how consumers receive your brand will let you measure the overall perception, value, and awareness of your brand.
Advantages of brand awareness surveys
You can also use surveys to track your brand and can be advantageous to building it. They will reveal how customers truly feel. With this, you can work on targeting the right market and improve your brand popularity and build brand equity.
Sample questions for brand awareness surveys
To ensure that you capture the appropriate data, you can ask questions such as:
- How well do you know our product?
- When was the first time you heard about our brand?
- How familiar are you with our brand?
Resources:
Learn more about using surveys to measure brand awareness
Explore the AI-powered Momentive solutions that help you elevate your brand
Find out how Chime relies on SurveyMonkey to boost its brand in this case study
We all love a good party, but planning one could face many challenges if you don’t have the proper tools to guide you throughout.
The purpose of meeting & event surveys
Using surveys when planning a business meeting, party, or event will give you the information you need to plan with confidence and ensure that your event is a success. Distribute event planning surveys before and after your event to capture feedback from guests, keep them top of mind from beginning to end.
Advantages of meeting & event surveys
Using surveys throughout the process of planning your event, especially in the beginning stages, can help create a clear roadmap to having a successful event. These simple surveys can help you collect data such as who will be attending the event (RSVPs), and valuable information like names, email addresses, phone numbers, and job titles.
Find out how many guests to expect so you can make sure that there are enough seats, meals, space, handouts, etc. Additionally, this data will also let you know who is available on which day and time, so you can schedule your event on the day when you know most people will be available to attend.
Sample questions for event planning surveys
Questions for event planning have a wide range but here are a few common ones:
- Gather dietary preferences—Do you have dietary restrictions?
- RSVP—Will you be attending the event?
- Post-event feedback—How would you rate the event you attended?
Resources:
Check out this General Event Feedback Survey Template
Explore all our best features for planning events, including ways to connect with your guests
Read how the Golden State Warriors leverage feedback from its fan experience
Nonprofit surveys are a cost-effective tool that organizations use to collect important information about a variety of things, so they can measure their current performance and help shape their agenda for the future.
The purpose of nonprofit surveys
As a nonprofit organization, you may consider conducting online surveys if you want to collect valuable information to gain a better understanding of your donors and why they choose to give, increase community awareness and engagement, or receive feedback regarding a fundraising event.
Advantages of nonprofit surveys
There could be a variety of reasons why you’d conduct an online survey for your nonprofit. Surveys can help improve communication between your organization and the community it serves, including supporters, donors, staff, and volunteers. Nonprofit surveys provide valuable information about your donors, supporters, and staff. They can also help maximize your email marketing efforts so you can better personalize your messages to target different audiences.
Sample questions for nonprofit surveys
Since nonprofit surveys gauge information related to the values and beliefs of community members, you may ask questions like:
- How valued do you feel as a donor?
- How familiar are you with our organization’s mission?
- Do you have any suggestions for how we might improve our volunteering experience?
Resources:
SurveyMonkey offers discounts for nonprofit organizations
Check out our Fundraising Feedback Survey Template for nonprofits
Read the case study about Vanguard Charitable and its Nonprofit Aid Visualizer™
Find out how loyal your customers are and learn what it takes to keep them from churning.
The purpose of the Net Promoter Score
A Net Promoter Score questionnaire gets you the insights to quickly understand what customers feel about your organization, then you can react to any negative feedback.
Sample question for Net Promoter Score
NPS surveys are quick and straight to the point, asking a simple question: How likely are you to recommend X to a friend or colleague? The scoring uses a rating system of 0-10 where customers fall into these categories:
- Promoters—These customers rate their experience either a 9 or 10. They are the most loyal and will continue to do business with you. Not only that, but they would recommend your organization and services to others, which ultimately contributes to your company’s growth.
- Passives—Customers in this group are satisfied but not enthusiastic. They are a vulnerable group because even though they expressed a positive view of your company, they are still open to patronizing your competitors. They rate their experience a 7 or 8.
- Detractors—This group are the unhappy customers who would not refer a friend or colleague and could potentially hurt your company’s brand through negative word-of-mouth, online reviews, or comments. They rate their experience from 0 to 6.
Advantages of NPS surveys
While no one likes to receive negative feedback, using NPS surveys help you to identify any problems and from there set goals—both internally and externally—to enhance and improve patient experiences.
Resources:
Create your own Net Promoter Score survey
Find out how NPS scoring works with this calculator
Getting better alignment between educators, students, even parents with academia surveys, student surveys, and more.
The purpose of surveys for academia
There are many different surveys you can launch within academia. Student surveys can help teachers build better curriculum. Teacher surveys can help evaluate the instruction. School surveys can help faculty, students, and parents voice concerns.
Sample questions for education surveys
Some example questions for academic purposes include:
- How well do the professors teach at this university?
- Overall, how would you rate this course?
- How connected do you feel to this institution?
Resources:
SurveyMonkey offers discounts for students and educators
Explore all the ways you can use surveys within academia
Read the case study on how Madison Area Technical College evolved to support instructors and students
So much can be done online, and since the COVID-19 pandemic, internet activity in homes has gone up drastically. Online surveys have become the most popular data-collection sources.
The purpose of online research surveys
Surveys can be sent to a targeted group of people via several mediums such as email, social media, mobile devices, and embedded in websites.Reach your customers right within their homes and gain insight into their needs, wants, and experiences.
Advantages of online surveys
Conducting online research is more cost-efficient and faster than paying an agency. Also, since everything is done online, companies don’t have to carry the burden of renting a space to gather people in one location, nor will they need to hire extra people to conduct the interviews. An added benefit to online research surveys is that you will be able to reach larger markets online, in a shorter time span and also get responses sooner. Because of this quick turnaround time, will yield faster results in the future.
Sample questions for online research surveys
You may see multiple choice questions, Likert scale questions, and open-ended questions in an online survey. For example:
- What other products would you like to see us offer? (Multiple choice question)
- How satisfied were you with your customer service experience? (Likert-type questions)
- On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague? (Rating question)
Resources:
Collect valuable data about your markets with SurveyMonkey
Learn how to run your own market research program with this ultimate guide
Let us take care of all your online research needs and talk to our experts today
Put these survey best practices to work
Follow these tips when creating and launching your surveys and get better insights:
1. Define a clear goal
When you have a goal, you know what you are working towards. If your goal is to learn why your company is experiencing a high turnover rate then your goal should be to learn the factors that are causing your staff to resign.
2. Keep surveys short
It can be challenging at times to get people to take a survey, therefore you should respect their time and keep surveys short. Longer surveys tend to discourage people from taking them. In the end, you will receive a higher completion rate and more thoughtful and honest responses.
3. Don’t ask leading questions
Leading questions tend to influence responses, so refrain from including your own opinion into the question. A good example is asking how helpful or unhelpful were our friendly customer service representatives? Including the word “friendly” already implies that the customer service representative was helpful.
4. Avoid double-barreled questions
Double-barreled questions are asking two separate questions within one question. For example, how would you rate the quality of our product and support? What type of response would you expect to get back by asking this question? Should the respondent answer both? Or just one? If the respondent is confused on how to answer this question, you risk the chance of that person not responding at all. Instead, break up the question into 2 separate ones.
You can use surveys as much and as often as you need. They are a good way to check in with everyone from employees to customers. Need help creating you surveys—we’ve got you covered with Surveys 101.
NPS, Net Promoter & Net Promoter Score are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.
Discover more resources
Toolkits directory
Discover our toolkits, designed to help you leverage feedback in your role or industry.
How to find survey respondents in 5 steps (with examples)
Get the best data from your survey. Learn how to find survey respondents people with these tools and tips from our survey research experts.
How to make your data collection more secure
Boost survey response rates with these 20 email templates
Enhance your survey response rates with 20 free email templates. Engage your audience and gather valuable insights with these customizable options!