The Product Satisfaction Survey Question Guide

The Product Satisfaction Survey Question Guide

Product satisfaction survey questions power their namesake survey, which allows businesses to quickly gain valuable information about their products directly from their paying customers.

Well-designed product satisfaction survey questions will not only measure how satisfied your customers are with your product(s), but also provide valuable information about how to improve your product or the product experience. 

How you create your product satisfaction survey questions can make the difference between lackluster insights and those that can drive real change for the future of your product. 

This article will help you understand how to create strong survey questions that will elicit useful responses that drive improvements, innovations and profitability.

Planning Your Product Satisfaction Survey Questions

The product satisfaction survey comes in a variety of formats and lengths. Your motivation for conducting a product satisfaction survey will influence the survey format that you decide to use. 

In many cases, companies will conduct a variety of surveys over a period of time, with each survey type designed to fulfill a specific purpose. 

Here are two principal considerations for these questions:

• If your company sells many different types of products, it may be useful to deploy a short product satisfaction survey on each product that customers bought. In order to ensure an optimal survey response rate, your survey questions should remain at just a few critical questions. 
• On the other hand, if your company develops high-end products or ones that require a longer period of use before a customer could rate it, you may benefit from surveys that are distributed less frequently but ask more in-depth questions. 

In the following section, we provide examples of different types of product satisfaction survey questions. These questions will help you get started, whether you choose to create a survey with 2 questions or 10!

Questions about Overall Product Satisfaction

At the outset of your survey, you should seek to understand your customers’ overall product satisfaction. To get a greater number of responses, consider having just 1 or 2 questions in this part of the survey, followed by an optional second part that dives deeper into the product.

Overall product satisfaction can be understood by asking one or more of the following questions:

• How satisfied are you with this product? 

1. 1. 1. If you wish to use the Customer Satisfaction Score survey (CSAT) format, the response should be provided on a 1 - 5 scale, with 5 indicating “highly satisfied.”
      2. Alternately, you could use a visual rating system using emoticons or create your own multiple-choice responses (e.g. “I love it!” / “It could be better.” / “I regret buying this product.”)

• How likely are you to recommend this product to a friend or colleague?

1. 1. 1. This is the golden question asked in a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey, which is popular because it can help companies quickly gauge overall product satisfaction. The response is provided on a scale of 1 - 10, with 10 being “most likely to recommend.”
      2. You could also use binary (yes/no) or multiple-choice responses for this question.

• How likely are you to purchase this product again?

1. 1. 1. Responses can be scaled i.e.,. 1 - 10, with 1 being least likely, or multiple choice (“I would definitely buy this product again!” / “I might buy this product again.” / “I would not buy this product again.”.

• How easy is it to use this product? 

1. 1. If your product has many features, consider using the Likert scale to get responses about each of its features. 

Questions about Product Features

If your product has multiple features or uses, you may need to get a better understanding of how each feature contributes to product satisfaction or dissatisfaction. This can help you decide how to improve, create, or retire certain product features.

In this section, you may wish to include a combination of close-ended and open-ended questions to give your customers the opportunity to provide additional feedback. 

• Where do you use this product?

1. 1. 1. Multiple-choice response (e.g. “At home” / “At work” / “At home and at work”)
      2. A Matrix or Likert scale if you want to understand how frequently the product is used in certain situations.
      3. A text entry field 

• Why did you purchase this product?

1. 1. 1. Multiple-choice response
      2. A text entry field

• Which of the following features do you use and how often?

1. 1. 1. To quickly gain information about various features, use a Matrix to gather information about the product features. The Matrix can have a list of product features in the first column, with responses along the top row, such “I use it every day.” / “I use it occasionally.” / “I rarely use it.”

• How would you rate each of the following features?

1. 1. 1. A matrix with scaled responses is a good way to quickly assess satisfaction with each product feature.

• What can we do to improve this product for you? 

1. 1. The response can be a text entry field to give customers the opportunity to provide spontaneous feedback, as you never know where the inspiration for your next product feature will come from.
   2. You could also use multiple-choice responses to prompt users to think about certain ways to improve the product, i.e.,  “Improve the on/off switch.” / “Include timer functionality.”

Questions about Price and Quality Balance 

How your customers perceive the balance between the price and quality of your product can affect their overall satisfaction levels. These questions can help ensure that your pricing strategy is appropriate for your customer base. 

• How would you rate the price of this product? 

1. 1. 1. The response may be scaled or multiple choice (i.e.e.g. “Too expensive” / “somewhat expensive” / “as expected” / “less expensive” / “much less expensive”).

• If this product was priced at [insert a lower value here], how would you describe your feelings?

1. 1. 1. Multiple choice answers with responses such as: “I would start to doubt the quality of the product and might not purchase it. / “I would think it was a good deal and would consider purchasing.“ / “I think this is a better price for the product.”)

• How likely would you be to try this product if it were priced at [enter a value you wish to test here]?

1. 1. Scaled answer, with 1 being extremely unlikely and 5 being extremely likely.

Questions to Help with Product Innovation

One of the most exciting aspects of evaluating product satisfaction is the opportunity to learn how your customers would like to see your product evolve in the future. This is your opportunity to explore potential features and, potentially, uncover some unexpected ideas.

• Please rate how likely you are to use the following features:

1. 1. 1. For this question, a matrix will allow you to understand how likely your customers would be to use any number of potential features. List out the features and allow users to select from options such as: “extremely likely” / “likely” / “unlikely” / extremely unlikely.”

• What is the one thing that you wish this product could do?

1. 1. 1. Multiple choice (list out potential features that could be added)
      2. Text entry field to allow for free-form responses. 

• What do you like least about this product?

1. 1. 1. Text entry field
      2. Multiple choice (list out some of the potential flaws in your product).

• What do you like most about this product?

1. 1. Text entry field
   2. Multiple choice (list out some of the most important features of your product).

Questions about Product Retention 

Finally, you may wish to explore how product retention affects satisfaction. Long-term company profitability has been linked to how long customers keep a product, so this is an important metric to explore. This information can also be used to segment your customers and understand how product retention affects satisfaction levels. 

• Did you keep this product?

1. 1. 1. Binary response. 
      2. Those who answered “no” could be directed to the following questions.

• If you did not keep this product, what did you do with it?

1. 1. 1. Multiple-choice answer (e.g. “Returned it for a refund.” / “Exchanged it for another similar product.” / “Gave it away.” / “Threw it in the trash.”

• Why didn’t you keep the product?

1. 1. 1. Multiple-choice answer (e.g. “I wasn’t happy with the quality.” “It didn’t work properly.” “I found a better price.”)
      2. Provide an optional text entry field for additional information.

• How long did you use the product before you returned or discarded it?

1. 1. Multiple choice response (e.g. “1 day” / “3 days” / “1 week” / “Longer than a week”).

Tips for Creating Strong Product Satisfaction Survey Questions

Regardless of the type of survey you choose to conduct, it’s important that you give careful thought to each question. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. Ask questions about overall product satisfaction first, before diving into more specific questions. 
   1. This ensures that you have at least one strong metric to track over time. 
2. Keep the survey short and focused to ensure an optimal response rate. Aim for 3 - 6 well-written questions (less if you are using the NPS or CSAT format).
3. Give participants the opportunity to provide additional feedback by including open-ended questions with text entry boxes. 
   1. This type of question should be optional, so it doesn’t prevent other users from completing the survey. 
4. Consider using a combination of quantitative and qualitative survey questions to gain a 360-degree view of your product from the customer’s perspective.
5. Ensure that each question has a single focus. Cramming two questions into one will confuse your respondent.
6. Use clear language and avoid using industry jargon. This helps respondents understand each question and pick the appropriate answer accurately.  

To learn more about creating powerful survey questions, visit our comprehensive guide about creating survey questions and responses. 

Better Planning with Product Satisfaction Surveys

Product satisfaction surveys are essential tools for granting companies the ability to understand much more than just overall satisfaction levels. These tools can be used to help chart out the course of your product by learning how to improve it over time.

Whether you choose to deploy a short survey or a more comprehensive one, you will gain invaluable data that describes exactly how your customers feel about your product. By taking the time to plan out more detailed questions, you can also make smart decisions about adding new product features and improving or retiring existing ones.

Unlike many other survey types, your audience is preselected, which means you don't need to go hunting for people to take your survey. Once you take the time to create strong product satisfaction survey questions, simply distribute the survey to your customers and get ready to dig into the data.

by lorraine