Surveys Types: Examples, Templates, and Benefits

Good and healthy communication with your customers is necessary to establish long-term relationships with them. For this, it is necessary to connect with your customers from time to time and collect their insights, feedback, and other data to know their requirements, expectations, and satisfaction with your products and services. Here comes the need to conduct surveys.

Surveys are a great way to collect valuable information and insights from customers. Whether you want to know the demographic details of the customers to do effective segmentation and targeting, or you want to collect feedback about your products or services, it is easy to seek your customers for this information through various types of surveys.

In this article, we will explore the various types of surveys so that you can make better decisions on when and which survey you should use for your business as per your survey needs. Let’s start with defining surveys and exploring their importance.

TL;DR

• A survey is a globally used method of research to collect feedback and other information from customers. It is a questionnaire that is sent to the customers which asks them questions regarding their feedback, opinions, and demographics.

• Surveys are beneficial for business in various ways - they provide valuable customer insights, foster continuous improvement, better communication & engagement, help to improve customer loyalty & satisfaction, and thus improve your business.

• There are various types of surveys. They can be divided into different categories on the basis of survey methods or channels of sending them, CX metric used in the questions, survey size, industry to be used in, and the rating scale used to provide response options to the focus groups.

• You can use NPS, CSAT, and CES surveys to gauge customer satisfaction, loyalty, and perceived efforts to get a job done, respectively.

• You can use long-form surveys or microsurveys depending upon the quantity of information you need to fetch through surveys.

• You can use different surveys for different industries like customer feedback surveys, patient feedback surveys, product feedback surveys, health assessment surveys, hotel guest feedback surveys, market research surveys, and student feedback surveys.

• You can use various rating scales in your survey questions like smiley-rating, star-rating, thumbs up/down, 1-10 rating scale, and Likert scale surveys.

• You can share these surveys through various channels and survey methods - email, in-app, SMS, website, and offline channels like kiosks, iOS and Android tablets and smartphones.

• Always use a good survey software or customer feedback software to create and share surveys and collect data from your customers. Zonka Feedback is an effective tool for this purpose that lets you create any type of survey easily with its ready-to-use templates. It also offers a free trial for 14 days.

Collect & Measure Customer Feedback 🔥

With various types of surveys, understand what customers need and learn ways to delight your customers.

What is a Survey?

A survey is a method of research used to gather information from a selected group of individuals for the purpose of collecting feedback or doing market research. A feedback or market research survey contains a questionnaire that is used to understand and analyze the opinions, demographics, and behavior of the target population.

Talking about customer surveys, they are a way to collect customers’ information and feedback about their experiences with the products, services, and organization. Customer surveys are crucial to creating an understanding with the customers and filling the gap between what you provide to the customers and what they expect from your organization. Here are some benefits of customer surveys to understand this better.

Benefits of Customer Surveys

• Valuable Customer Insights and Feedback - Customer surveys provide valuable insights into customer satisfaction and experiences.

• Continuous Improvement - Feedback surveys help you identify the areas of improvement in your products and services and foster continuous improvement.

• Better Customer Communication and Engagement - Surveys help you build stronger connections and effective communication with your customers, thus increasing customer engagement.

• Better Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction - Surveys help you measure and improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. 

• Better Business Decisions - Feedback surveys when taken into consideration help guides to take the right action and make better data-driven decisions for your business.

• Shows Care for Your Customers - Sharing a survey asking for custom opinion conveys that you care for your customers which induces a sense of loyalty among them.

• Better Products and Services - Survey response data helps you build better products and provide better services for your customers.

• Increased Customer Retention - Surveys help you identify customer issues and resolve them before it's too late. This prevents customer churn and enhances retention.

• Attracting New Customers - Acting on feedback and fulfilling customers’ expectations leads to positive reviews and word-of-mouth thus attracting new customers into the business, which ultimately contributes to business growth.

Let’s explore the different types of surveys you can use in your business to survey your customers.

Types of Surveys

Gone are the days when businesses had to approach the target audience with a pen and paper and conduct paper surveys or in-person interviews or phone surveys to collect data from them. Now, there are better types of survey methods that you can use to easily survey your customers and collect valuable data from your focus groups.

Survey research methods include various types of online and offline surveys among which you can choose those which best suit your needs and are able to fetch the data you want. We have divided these surveys into various categories based on different aspects like channels of survey research, metrics, rating scale, length, and more.

Let’s explore first the types of survey methods categorized on the basis of channels to send surveys.

Types of Surveys based on Channels

Here are the various types of surveys based on the survey channels you use to share them with your customers.

Offline Surveys

Offline surveys refer to those types of survey methods which are conducted without using an online surveys channel like email or website to connect to the customers and ask them for their feedback or opinion. These surveys can be conducted at physical locations like a physical store or restaurant through digital devices like iOS or Android tablets and smartphones, or kiosks to deliver exceptional location-based customer experience.

These surveys do not necessarily require an active internet connection to capture survey response data. Instead, with the help of a good survey tool or survey app, you can capture customer responses even at the remotest of locations and save them for weeks without the internet. When the device is connected to the internet, the app will sync all the saved responses automatically.

Offline surveys can further be of different kinds depending upon the device used for collecting surveys.

• Tablet Surveys - You can collect survey responses with your iPad survey app or Android tablets by physically taking the device to your customers and handing it over to them for some time requesting them to provide feedback.

• Mobile Surveys - You can use your iPhone or Android smartphone to collect survey responses from the customers. You can use these devices on the go to conduct mobile phone surveys using the Android survey app, and collect survey responses anytime anywhere without the internet.

• Kiosk Surveys - You can also set up unattended kiosk devices at your premises which the customers can approach and easily use to take the survey and share feedback without requiring any assistance.

Website Surveys

Website surveys are a type of online surveys through which you can collect feedback or market research information from your website visitors. These surveys are typically implemented on a website's pages and are aimed at understanding user experience, preferences, and opinions.

Website surveys can be easily shared with the help of feedback widgets like popups, slide ups and feedback buttons. They can be of different forms.

• Popup Surveys - These are online surveys that appear as pop-up boxes or overlays on a website. They can be triggered by various actions, such as time spent on a page, scrolling, or before a user exits the site.

  
  

• Slide-Up Surveys - These online surveys gracefully slide onto the screen from either side of a webpage. They offer a less intrusive way to gather feedback, often triggered by user actions like scrolling or reaching a specific page section.

• Feedback Button Surveys - Placed strategically on a website, feedback buttons provide users with a non-intrusive way to share their thoughts. When clicked, they can reveal an online survey or prompt users to provide feedback on specific aspects of the site.

• Exit Intent Surveys - These online surveys are designed to capture feedback when a user is about to leave a website. By detecting mouse movements toward the browser's exit button, an exit intent survey can be triggered, giving you valuable insights before visitors depart.

Email Surveys

Email surveys are those online surveys in which feedback or information is collected from the customers through the use of email. In mail surveys, a survey invitation message is sent to the focus groups followed by a survey link, or button. Mail surveys can be of different types:

• Email Button Survey - In this online survey email, the survey invitation message is followed by a survey link, clicking on which the survey opens and the customers can easily respond to it.

• Email Link Survey - In these mail surveys, a hyperlink to the survey is sent to the customers with the email invitation message, clicking which the survey opens and the customers can take it.

• Embedded Email Survey - In embedded mail surveys, the first question of the survey is embedded in the email body itself. As your customers click to respond to that question, their response gets recorded and the next question or the whole survey opens and appears on the screen which the customers can easily respond to.

  

• Email Signature Survey - To send email signature surveys, you don’t need to send a specific survey email. Rather, you can add a survey button, link, or embed question as a part of your email signature for your regular emails to give your customers an option to share feedback with every email.

  

SMS Surveys

SMS Surveys are one of the most common and easy types of survey methods in which a text message is sent to the customers on their mobile phones inviting them to take the survey and share feedback, followed by a hyperlink to the survey. As the customers go to the link that is shared via SMS survey software, it opens within seconds and the survey appears on their mobile device, which they can easily fill in and submit their responses.

SMS surveys are a great online survey method to collect feedback or information from customers using Short Messaging Service (SMS). This approach leverages the widespread use of mobile phones to reach a broad audience quickly.

Let’s explore the types of surveys used to calculate various CX metrics.

Types of Surveys Based on CX Metrics

There are some popular customer satisfaction metrics which are commonly used to measure customer experience in terms of satisfaction, loyalty, and customers' ease of doing business. Here are the three most popular CX metric surveys you can sue.

NPS Survey

Net Promoter Score or NPS surveys is a popular metric survey method to measure customer loyalty. The primary question of this survey, which is also known as The Ultimate Question asks the customers about their likelihood to recommend a product, service, or business to others. Here is the question:

On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to your friends and colleagues?

To answer the question, a rating scale of 0 to 10 is provided to the customers where 10 means Most Likely and 0 means Not at all Likely to recommend.

The survey is based on the fact that the customers will only recommend a business to others if they themselves are satisfied with it. So it is a one-in-all survey used to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction.

CSAT Survey

Customer Satisfaction Survey or CSAT survey is another popular metric survey method used to measure the level of satisfaction of the customers with a product, service, interaction, or the overall business. This survey asks the customers to rate their experiences on a scale of 1 to 5. Here is the survey question.

How satisfied are you with our product/service?

In a customer satisfaction survey, 5-point rating scale is provided to the customers where rating options can be expressed in various ways like adjectives from Excellent to Poor, self-explanatory emoticons, star-ratings, and more among which the customers can choose as per their level of satisfaction.

CES Surveys

Customer Effort Score or CES survey are used to measure customers’ perceived efforts and ease of doing business while interacting with a product or service. This survey method is used to assess how easy it is for the customers to get their job done or issues resolved. Here is the primary survey question asked from the customers:

How much do you agree with or disagree with the following statement? “The company made it easy for me to handle my issues”.

• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Somewhat Agree
• Neutral
• Somewhat Disagree
• Disagree
• Strongly Disagree

The above 7-point rating scale is provided to the customers to let them choose the answer as per their experience. These surveys are commonly used to assess the customers’ experiences with the customer service teams in handling and resolving their issues.

Types of Surveys based on Survey Size

Surveys can be of different forms and vary in size. It is ideal to use short and concise surveys, however, you should make this decision based on the amount of information you require from your target audience.

Long Form Surveys

Long-form surveys offer a deep dive into customer opinions, preferences, and experiences. These surveys, though more time-consuming, provide nuanced insights and are suitable for strategic planning, product development, and understanding complex customer behaviors.

These surveys aim to collect customer feedback about every aspect of your product, services, and business. When you use these surveys, make sure that you are sending them at the right time and are not using them too frequently, as overusing them can lead to survey fatigue.

Microsurveys

Microsurveys, on the other hand, are nimble and designed for brevity. Typically consisting of just a few questions, this survey method is ideal for capturing quick feedback on specific touchpoints or immediate customer experiences.

A microsurvey is effective for maintaining high respondent engagement and capturing more responses to get accurate and actionable feedback. These surveys are:

• Short and to-the-point surveys with one or two questions.

• Often involves CX metric questions to gauge customer loyalty, satisfaction, or ease of work.

• Ideal for in-moment feedback.

• A good way to collect feedback separately at every touchpoint.

Let’s explore the types of surveys used in different industries.

Types of Surveys Based on Industry

Here are some types of surveys which can be used for businesses of various industries.

Customer Feedback Surveys

General customer feedback surveys are versatile and applicable across various industries. They serve as a foundational tool for understanding overall customer satisfaction, preferences, and areas for improvement.

Customer feedback surveys:

• Help you collect feedback using customer feedback tools from your customers in whichever industry you are in, be it the retail industry, service industry, apparel, automobiles, or any other industry.

• Can be tailored to specific objectives and information to gather.

• Can involve both open-ended and closed-ended questions.

• Can collect quantifiable as well as qualitative feedback from the customers.

• Can be used as a way to increase customer engagement and ensure satisfaction.

Hotel Guest Feedback Surveys

Hotel guest feedback surveys are specifically designed for the hotel and hospitality industry to gather guest feedback regarding various aspects of their stay at the hotel. The data collected through these surveys helps hotels to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the hotels and work on them to improve guest expereince.

If you are in the hotel industry, you can gather feedback about various aspects and touchpoints through these surveys. With these surveys, you can gauge:

• Room-booking experience of the guest.

• Check-in experience

• Quality of the rooms

• Staff responsiveness and behavior

• Food quality at the restaurant

• Experience of using the facilities and amenities of the hotel

• Overall hotel stay experience

• Check-out experience

Patient Feedback Surveys

Patient satisfaction surveys or patient feedback surveys are the ones that are used in hospitals and the healthcare industry to gauge the experience and satisfaction of the inpatients and outpatients with the treatment and healthcare services provided at the hospital or a healthcare centre.

These surveys are crucial to assess and improve the quality of medical care, appointment-booking process, waiting time, doctors’ diagnosis, treatment, staff support, ambience and cleanliness of the healthcare facility, cafeteria services, laboratory and dispensary services of the hospital or clinic. These surveys contribute to the continuous improvement of healthcare services.

Patient surveys are of two types:

• Inpatient Feedback Surveys - These surveys are used to collect feedback from inpatients, i.e., the patients who stay at the healthcare facility for treatment for some days. These surveys are typically useful in hospitals to gauge patients’ experiences of going through their overall treatment.

• Outpatient Feedback Surveys - Outpatient feebdack surveys are used to collect feedback from the outpatients, i.e., the patients that visit the clinic or hospital for consultation and treatment and go back home on the same day. These surveys are useful in clinics, hospitals and healthcare centres where patients visit to consult a doctor, take medication, and go back home.

Health Assessment Surveys

Health Assessment Surveys are also a type of survey used in the healthcare industry. These surveys include specifically healthcare assessment questions which are used to evaluate an individual's health status, lifestyle, and potential risk factors. These surveys are instrumental in gathering comprehensive data to inform healthcare providers, clinicians, and individuals themselves about various aspects of well-being.

• These surveys provide comprehensive health insights and aspects like physical, mental, and lifestyle factors.

• They help identify the potential health risk factors for each patient.

• They also help doctors to monitor the chronic condition of the patients.

• They guide the doctors to provide the best-suited treatment to the patients.

Student Feedback Surveys

Student feedback surveys are those which are used by educational institutions to collect feedback from students regarding the quality of education provided to them. You can use these surveys at various touchpoints for different purposes.

• To collect feedback for the registration and admission process.

• To collect feedback about a trial class or session

• To collect feedback about teachers and their quality of teaching.

• To gauge the effectiveness and availability of study material.

• To get a comprehensive view of students’ overall learning experiences.

Product Feedback Surveys

If you are into SaaS or the product industry, product feedback surveys are helpful for collecting feedback and gauging the experience of the users with your product. You can share product feedback surveys at various touchpoints.

• Send onboarding feedback surveys to collect user feedback regarding your onboarding process.

• Use these surveys to gauge the free trial experience of the product users.

• Use bug reports to let your product users report a bug

• Send these surveys after any customer interaction regarding an issue or query.

• Collect feedback about the issue resolution process just after your customer service team has closed an issue.

Let’s explore various types of surveys based on different kinds of rating scales used in their survey questions.

Survey Types Based on Rating

Here are some rating scale surveys that you can use to measure customer satisfaction.

Likert Scale Surveys

Likert scale surveys are structured questionnaires that are used by businesses to measure satisfaction, agreement, likelihood, importance, quality, frequency, and more. In these surveys,h a rating scale is provided to the respondents in the form of a matrix to let them rate their experiences.

• Likert scale questions are multiple-choice questions.

• They are closed-ended questions to let the respondents choose their rating option.

• Unlike binary questions, the survey questions have more than two options.

• The rating scale of these surveys lies from a 5 to 11-point rating scale.

• These surveys are very easy and quick to respond to.

Smiley Rating Surveys

Smiley rating or smiley face surveys are a kind of feedback survey that typically uses smiley or emoji faces as answer options to let the customers share their experiences.

These smiley faces represent the customers’ opinions in the form of various emojis like a happy face, neutral face, crying or angry face. These self-explanatory smileys are easily understood by the customers and are universally accepted. They can be used to collect customer feedback for Salesforce surveys, post meeting surveys, product feedback surveys and more. 

Thumbs Up Thumbs Down Surveys

Thumbs Up/Down surveys are simple and easy surveys that use binary optional questions to ask for feedback from the customers, and the customers need to respond by just choosing a thumbs up or thumbs down option, where thumbs up denotes a positive experience, whereas a thumbs down represents a negative experience.

• These surveys are simple and short surveys

• They are super easy and quick to respond.

• They can be used at every touchpoint to know whether customers liked or disliked a specific experience.

• These surveys have a good response rate due to their ease of responding.

• They are best suited for instances where you don’t need a detailed response but require only simple like or dislike, yes or no, etc.

1-10 Opinion Scale Surveys

1-10 Opinion scale surveys are those which provide a 10-point rating scale to the customers to rate their experience with your product, services, or the overall business. 

These questions can be used to measure satisfaction, loyalty, performance of products and services, performance of customer service representatives, and more.

5- Star Rating Surveys

5-Star surveys are another common form of satisfaction survey that businesses use to measure the satisfaction of the customers with a product, product aspect, service, or the overall brand in a 5-point rating scale where rating options are represented as stars.

In these surveys, customers are asked to give a rating to a product or service between 1 star to 5 stars where 5 stars mean maximum satisfaction, whereas 1 star means minimum or no satisfaction.

Survey Templates to Create the Survey Type of Your Choice

Here are some survey templates that you can use to create the type of survey you want as per your business requirements and survey objectives.

1. Net Promoter Score Survey Template

2. Customer Satisfaction Survey Template

3. Customer Effort Score Survey Template

4. Website Feedback Survey Template

5. Healthcare Survey Template

6. Product Feedback Survey Template

7. Hotel Guest Feedback Survey Template

Conclusion

Surveys are a great way to collect feedback and other information from the customers which can help you improve your products and services and boost your business growth. While deciding the type of survey you want to conduct, consider your survey objectives, business type, and your target audience whom you want to survey.

Moreover, you should use a good survey software that lets create various types of surveys and send them through the channels of your choice and convenience. Zonka Feedback is one such software that can serve your purpose.

It provides ready-to-use survey templates for creating any type of surveys and sending them through multiple channels to collect and take action on feedback. It also provides a free trial. Try Zonka Feedback for free for 14 days and see how it works for your business.