Without a doubt, the focus of your customer survey should be on answering your key objectives. Items such as "What is our customer satisfaction score?" "What is our net promoter score (NPS)?" "What are our customers most pleased with?" "What does our organization need to improve?" 
These types of questions are the main drivers behind using services like Voice of Customer (VoC), Customer Experience (CX), and customer surveys. Answers to these questions can drive your organizational marketing, operations, and strategy.
But is their hidden value in asking some additional items in a customer survey? We argue yes. If you are going to reach out to your customers to collect feedback, why not try to kill 2, 3, or 4 birds with one stone?
These value-added questions should detract from the main objectives, but if you have room for them at the end of the survey, the can create immediate action for your team.
Here are 4 customer survey question examples to think about using in your next questionnaire. If you have their attention sneaking these in at the end of the survey can create a lot of value and return.
Value Add 1: Ask for a testimonial
Most organizations have no formal process to collect testimonials from customers. Some have no process at all. That can all change with a simple customer survey question. The beauty of using a market research firm with advanced survey software capabilities is they have the ability to only ask the question among those who rate you highly.
For example, why would you want to ask a customer who is very dissatisfied for a testimonial? It's not something you would feature on your website, in your marketing materials, or as part of a proposal. If you ask a simple customer satisfaction question on a 1 to 5 scale with "5" being very satisfied, the customer survey firm can design the survey to skip the testimonial question if they rate you a "3" or lower.
Surveys are an excellent way to quickly collect hundreds of testimonials.
Value Add 2: Ask if they would like to be contacted for any reason
Since you are reaching out to your customers in the masses through a customer survey, why not ask them if they would like to be contacted by your organization for any reason? This could be a customer question around billing, an issue with customer service, or they may want to talk to a salesperson to purchase something. Regardless, the survey is a nice way to reach out and collect this information to spark follow-up communication.
Value Add 3: Ask if they would like to participate in future market research
One of our mottoes is market research is "surveys will answer a lot of questions for you but they'll also raise many others." Market research can be addictive, and you may find yourself always wanting to dig deeper to explore more. We suggest opening this door using a question in the survey. By asking this at the end of the survey you can filter those who answer "yes" and conduct follow-up research using in-depth interviews (IDIs), focus groups, and other tools.
Value Add 4: Ask if they enjoyed the survey experience
One of the things we like to do differently at Drive Research is make our surveys short, fun, and engaging. We're not huge fans of long boring surveys. Those surveys may be good for the market research firm but they are not good for the participant. Drop-offs increase and engagement dissipates quickly. Wondering how enjoyable your survey experience was? Just ask.
It lets you know if you need to make adjustments down the road on your next survey. It also helps keep engagement top-of-mind for the survey designer. It's not something you necessarily have to use in all of your surveys, but it is good to mix it in.
Contact Our Customer Survey Firm
Drive Research is a market research firm in New York State. Our customer survey firm works with clients across the country on their market research needs.
Contact us at [email protected] or call us at 315-303-2040.