10 Survey Question You Should Ask Your Customers

First a bit of background…
Rodrigo Fuentes is the co-founder of
ListenLoop, a customer communication
platform that monitors what your
customers are doing in your website,
then selectively engages customers to
push for activation, usage, and
retention.
!
He holds a B.S. in Elec. Eng., from Yale
University and a J.D. from Columbia
Law School.

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Whether you’re a product manager or marketer,
it’s important that you ask the right questions.
Here are 10 questions you  
should ask your customers.

Customers will help you
improve your business and
product, gain a better
understanding of your market,
and even bring you referrals.
Why?

But do not ask all  
10 questions as part  
of one survey.

Break up your interactions into bite-size questions
to maximize response rates and engagement.

Without further ado,
here are the 10
questions

1.! How did you ﬁrst hear about us?

Learn which marketing channels bring
in the most successful customers.
* Net Promoter Score and NPS are registered trademarks of Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix.

Understand your customers’ ﬁrst
memories of how they heard
about you, not the “referral
source,” which you can easily
obtain from Google Analytics.

Then, run a cross-tab report comparing where customers
heard about you against their Net Promoter Score.*

2.! What problem does our product solve for you?

The marketing / product message you believe you’re
transmitting is not the message being received.
!

Create a feedback loop to
ensure that your marketing or
product message resonates  
with your intended audience.

Ask this question as part of an
automatic, transactional email drip
(example here).

Note this email's simplicity and casual
tone – just click or tap to participate!

3.! What do you like most / least about our product?

Orient your marketing to promote the
most valuable aspect of your offering.

This is critical in today’s world of  
over-featurization.

“When we started ListenLoop, we thought our unique
value proposition was helping product managers
‘validate unbuilt features’ through in-app questions.
Relentlessly asking, ‘What do you like most / least about
our product?’ helped us identify bigger opportunities.”
-Sandeep, CTO @ListenLoop
Version 0.1 of ListenLoop

4.! What’s the one thing we should never stop doing?

Understand what your
customers love about
your company.
!
!
Is it your awesome customer
service or funky branding?

Elicit an
emotional
response  
and distill its
message.

This is often what your customers will mention in
a referral to a friend or colleague.

Examples:
Mailchimp, never stop being playful throughout the
product experience.
Hubspot, never stop creating amazing content that
helps people become better marketers
Amazon, never stop offering free 2-day shipping for
Prime Members

5.! What made you choose us over our competitors?

Discovering a product or service
“differentiator” is the kind of
competitive intelligence that
pays huge dividends.

Not why you think you’re different.
!
Why your customers believe you’re different
than other solutions.

Ask this question after your customer has
had a chance to experience your product.
Trigger this question to SaaS customers who have used core functions more than ten times in 30
days.

6.! What do our competitors do better than us?

Your customers are already comparing
- features
- support response times
- pricing

Learn competitors’ strengths 
and differentiate #ftw

Capture info with automatic, plain-text emails

Bonus: draw out competitive
objections while you can still respond.

7. How likely is it that you would recommend us  
to a friend or colleague?

This question is the foundation of
the Net Promoter Score (NPS)*
system, which gauges the loyalty
of a company’s customer
relationships.
Measure and improve your customer satisfaction

Data scientists have
identiﬁed strong
correlation between
Net Promoter Scores
and revenue growth.
*

Ask the NPS* question to customers at least once per quarter at the
point of interaction.

Then go the extra mile.
!
Have your customer support
team quickly respond to low
scores to turn critics into
champions.

ZocDoc triggers this
question within their
website experience
immediately after you book
an appointment online.
!
If you give them a low
score, a ZocDoc
representative will contact
you by phone and email
within 24 hours!
Example

8. What’s the most recent example of how we have
exceeded your expectations?

Specific questions that cover a
well-defined timeframe get
the most actionable insights.

You want to know:!
Do you like our product?

You want to know:!
Ask this instead:!
What’s the most recent example of how  
we have exceeded your expectations?

You want to know:!
Ask this instead:!
What’s the most recent example of how  
we have exceeded your expectations?
Follow-up with:!
Have we ever failed to meet your
expectations? What happened?

Broad or vague questions force
customers to stop and wonder whether
their answer is appropriate or
responsive to your question prompt.
!
!
This friction causes them to
bounce, rather than respond.

9. How would you ﬁnd a business like ours  
on Google?

Identify new keywords and concepts
that lead to customer acquisition.

If you want future customers to
find your business online, you
need to know everything you can
about the keywords and phrases
they use when looking for
companies like yours. This is one
of the most important aspects of
your inbound efforts.

Identify common keywords used by your
most proﬁtable customers. Double-down
accordingly.
Combine this question with  
NPS or other custom variables
*

10. Do you have any questions for us?

Proactively solicit “support tickets”
!
ﬁnd gaps in your offering and  
create referral advocates

If just one customer has a
question or issue, rest
assured that 10x more
customers share  
the same
concern.

We call this #TheIcebergEffect.

!
You’re already overwhelmed
with irate customers! But this
question is an opportunity to
reduce your support costs
going forward.
Yes, it’s scary.

then take steps to resolve the
problem through better messaging
or product improvements.
First, resolve the issue for the responding customer

This will help reduce future support
costs on that same issue, and it’s
very likely that your efforts will earn
you a referral due to your
!
proactive, heroic support.

Conclusion
People forget that.
!
Reach out to your customers,
ask them some of the questions above,
and reply to their responses.

Conclusion
Soon you’ll have a growing
community of brand advocates.
Plus, the information you'll get from
customers will help you steer your product
and company to the next-level of success.

Question List Recap
1. How did you hear about us?
2. What problem does our product solve for you?
3. What do you like most / least about our product?
4. What’s the one thing we should never stop doing?
5. What made you choose us over our competitors?
6. What do my competitors do better than what we do?
7. How likely would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?
8. What’s the most recent example of how we have exceeded your expectations?
9. What would you Google to ﬁnd a business like ours?

Questions?
I love helping Internet businesses of all shapes and
sizes. Plus, I read and respond to all messages.
Message me @ListenLoop
or at rodrigo@listenloop.com

Stay in Touch
rodrigo@listenloop.com@ListenLoop
linkedin.com/company/listenloopblog.listenloop.com

Want to learn more about ListenLoop?
These slides included examples of ListenLoop
customers triggering questions inside of their
applications.
Request My Demo

10 Survey Question You Should Ask Your Customers

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