A survey tells you what your customers think. Market research tells you what everyone else’s customers think and where the gaps lie, and the two are often commissioned together. The results of both feed the copywriting and website copy that follow.
Customer satisfaction survey
Ask well. Then act on it.
A customer satisfaction survey tells you what customers think before they leave. We design the questions, run it and write up what the answers mean.
The questions
What should a customer satisfaction survey ask?
One thing you will act on, then the detail that explains it. A good survey opens with an overall rating, follows with a handful of questions about the parts of the experience you can change, and ends with one open question and the few facts you need about the respondent.
Short wins. Every extra question costs you answers, so we cut anything whose result would not change a decision. Customer survey design and analysis is one job: a question is only worth asking if we know how the answer will be read.
Question types
Which question type fits?
| Type | Example | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Rating scale | “How satisfied were you with the delivery?” 1 to 5 | Scores to track over time; the Likert scale is the usual form |
| Recommend score | “How likely are you to recommend us?” 0 to 10 | The net promoter question, comparable across years |
| Multiple choice | “Which of these did you buy?” | Sorting respondents into groups for the analysis |
| Open text | “What one thing would you change?” | The reasons behind the scores, grouped by theme |
Delivery
How will customers receive it?
Email
After a purchase or a job
Sent from your address a few days after delivery. An online shop like Beacon Lighting can send one after every order.
QR
A link or a QR code
On the receipt, the invoice, a table card or the back of the van, for customers you cannot email.
Paper
In the room
A printed form at the counter or the event, matched to the digital version so the data joins up.
Call
By telephone
For a handful of high-value accounts, a scripted call gets answers an email never would.
How it runs
How does a survey project run?
What you need to know
We agree the decisions the survey must inform and who should be asked.
Write and test
The questionnaire is drafted, checked for leading or double questions, then tried on a handful of real customers before it goes out.
Run it
We set it up on your survey platform or ours, and write the invitation and the privacy note from your own policy.
Analyse and report
Scores by question and by customer group, the open answers grouped into themes with quotes, and a short list of what to change first.
Questions
Questions about customer satisfaction surveys
Question not here? Send it to us and we will answer it directly.
Ask a questionHow do we start a customer survey?
Email hello@redfoxbranding.com or fill in the project form and tell us what you want to find out and roughly how many customers you have. We send a fixed quote in GBP, USD or ZAR and a draft question list for you to react to.
How many responses do we need?
Enough to see a pattern rather than an opinion, and that depends on how many customers you have and how finely you want to split the results. We advise on a target before the survey goes out and on the response rate to expect from each channel.
Should the survey be anonymous?
For honest answers about service, usually yes, with an optional box for a name if the customer wants a reply. For account reviews with a handful of major clients, named answers are more useful. Either way the invitation says plainly what is collected and why, taken from your privacy policy.
What is a good net promoter score?
The one that is higher than your last one. Scores vary by sector and country, so a published average says little. We report the score, the share of promoters and detractors behind it and the reasons they gave, and the second survey a year on is where it starts to mean something.
Hearing from the wider market too?
Get a quote for a customer satisfaction survey
Tell us what you want to learn, how your customers prefer to hear from you and when you want the results. You get a fixed quote and a draft set of questions to react to. Every customer satisfaction survey we run starts with that draft.