Customer service survey template: 7 questions
How well did support serve them?
A customer service survey asks a customer how a support interaction went, usually within a day of the ticket closing. The Great Question template has seven questions: overall satisfaction and the reason for it, how well the team understood the question, how knowledgeable they were, how easy it was to resolve, what to improve, and how likely the customer is to recommend you.
Questions it can answer
- How is our customer service being received?
- Where can we improve our service?
- Are there similar problems that happen over and over?
What is a customer service feedback survey?
Customer service feedback surveys evaluate the experience a customer had with your customer service team. They work best when sent to customers immediately after the customer service interaction so that the experience is fresh in their mind. Customer service surveys can be running consistently as a real-time measure of customer satisfaction and enable issues to be resolved quickly.
Related guide: For turning the open-text answers into themes, see our guide to customer feedback analysis.
Do it faster with a Claude skill: Survey designer. Builds a first draft of this study in Claude that you can edit before you send it.
The questions in this template
These are the questions in the Great Question customer service survey template. Replace the text in angle brackets with your own.
Overall how satisfied are you with the customer service you received?
Linear Scale
- Extremely dissatisfied
- Somewhat dissatisfied
- Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
- Somewhat satisfied
- Extremely satisfied
Why do you feel that way?
Long Text
How well did you feel we understood your questions or concerns?
Single Select
- Extremely well
- Very well
- Somewhat well
- Not very well
- Not at all well
How knowledgeable did you feel our team was?
Single Select
- Extremely knowledgeable
- Very knowledgeable
- Somewhat knowledgeable
- Not very knowledgeable
- Not at all knowledgeable
How easy or difficult did you find it to resolve your question or concern?
Linear Scale
- Extremely easy
- Somewhat easy
- Neither easy nor difficult
- Somewhat difficult
- Extremely difficult
How could we improve the service you received?
Short Text
How likely are you to recommend <insert organization / product / service> to a friend or colleague?
Linear Scale
Not at all likelyExtremely likely
Questions you might add
These are our suggestions, not part of the Great Question template. Add them only if you will use the answers.
Was your issue resolved? Single choice: Yes, Partly, No.
How did you contact us? Single choice: Chat, Email, Phone, Help center form, In-app message, Social media.
How many times did you contact us about this issue, including this time? Single choice: Once, Twice, Three or more times.
How to run it
When to send. Trigger the survey when a ticket closes, ideally within 24 hours, while the interaction is still fresh. If the issue is reopened, wait until it is closed again.
Length. All seven questions take a couple of minutes. If you send it after every ticket and responses drop off, keep Q1, Q2 and Q5 for the triggered survey and run the full set to a sample of recent tickets once a quarter.
Sample size. A triggered survey builds up responses over time, so look at results by week or month rather than day. Treat a change in a small week with caution, and cut by channel or issue type only once each group has enough responses to be worth comparing.
How to analyse. Report satisfaction as the share of "Somewhat satisfied" and "Extremely satisfied" answers on Q1. Q5 runs from "Extremely easy" to "Extremely difficult", the opposite direction to Q1, so check the order before you score it. Use Q3 and Q4 to see whether low scores come from the team or from the process. Calculate a Net Promoter Score from Q7 if you track one. Tag the open text from Q2 and Q6 into themes and count them. Use team-level results for coaching conversations, not public rankings, since a single agent's sample is usually small.
Advantages
- Easy to run consistently
- Identify service gaps
- Find opportunities to improve experiences
Limitations
- Can receive skewed results
- Need to be sent immediately after interaction
- Volume might be such that analysis is hard to keep up on
Frequently asked questions
What are good customer service survey questions?
Start with overall satisfaction and an open "why", then ask how well the team understood the problem, how knowledgeable they were and how easy it was to resolve. Finish with what you could improve. This template covers those in seven questions, plus a recommend question.
What is the difference between CSAT, CES and NPS?
CSAT asks how satisfied someone is with a specific interaction, like Q1 in this template. Customer effort score asks how easy it was to get the issue handled, which is close to Q5. NPS asks how likely they are to recommend you, as in Q7, so it measures the whole relationship rather than one support conversation.
When should I send a customer service survey?
Within 24 hours of the ticket closing. Later than that, people remember less and response rates drop.
How many questions should a customer service survey have?
This template has seven, which takes a couple of minutes. For a survey sent after every ticket, some teams cut to three: satisfaction, the reason for it, and ease of resolution.