Survey Questionnaire Examples: 8 Complete Samples You Can Copy

A survey questionnaire is the set of questions you put in front of a respondent — the instrument, not the whole study. This guide is for anyone who needs to write one today and would rather start from something that works. Below: eight complete survey questionnaire examples you can copy, a table of question types with a sample of each, the wording mistakes that quietly ruin results, and a note on where demographic questions belong.

How to use these examples

Each survey questionnaire example below is complete and runnable. Swap the bracketed parts, delete what does not apply, and resist adding questions — every one you add costs you completed responses. The examples share four conventions:

• One idea per question. “Was the service fast and friendly?” cannot be answered by someone who found it fast and rude.
• The same scale throughout. Mixing 1–5 and 1–10 in one questionnaire makes the results incomparable and confuses respondents.
• Demographics last. Except in the screener, where one of them has to come first.
• One open question at the end. It is where the language you should be using comes from.

1. Customer satisfaction questionnaire

1. How easy was it to place your order? (1 = very difficult, 5 = very easy)
2. How satisfied were you with the delivery time? (1–5)
3. How satisfied were you with the condition of the product on arrival? (1–5)
4. Did you contact our support about this order? (Yes / No)
5. [If yes] How satisfied were you with that contact? (1–5)
6. How likely are you to recommend us to a friend? (0–10)
7. What could we have done better? (open)

Why it works: every rated item is a thing you can change. “How satisfied are you with our company?” is not.

2. NPS questionnaire

1. How likely are you to recommend [COMPANY] to a colleague or friend? (0–10)
2. What is the main reason for your score? (open)
3. [If 0–6] What would we need to change for you to score higher? (open)

Why it works: two questions and a conditional third. The score is the least interesting part — the reason is what you act on. Keep the wording identical between waves or the trend becomes meaningless.

3. Employee engagement questionnaire

Rate your agreement with each statement (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree):

1. My workload is manageable.
2. I have the tools and information I need to do my job well.
3. My manager gives me feedback I can act on.
4. I understand how my work contributes to the company’s goals.
5. I can see a path to develop here.
6. I would recommend this company as a place to work. (0–10)
7. What is the one thing we should change? (open)
8. Which team are you in? (list — only if teams have 8+ people)

Why it works: the last line is a warning, not an instruction. In a team of four, a department question makes the survey identifiable and the answers polite.

4. Event or training feedback questionnaire

1. Overall, how would you rate [EVENT]? (1–5)
2. How relevant was the content to your work? (1–5)
3. How would you rate the speaker or trainer? (1–5)
4. How would you rate the organisation — venue, timing, materials? (1–5)
5. What will you actually use from this? (open)
6. What should we change next time? (open)

Why it works: question 5 separates “enjoyed it” from “learned something”, which are different outcomes and often move in opposite directions.

5. Product feedback questionnaire

1. How often do you use [PRODUCT]? (Daily / Weekly / Monthly / Rarely)
2. Which features do you use regularly? (multiple choice)
3. How easy is [PRODUCT] to use? (1–5)
4. How well does it solve the problem you got it for? (1–5)
5. What is the most frustrating thing about it? (open)
6. If you could add one thing, what would it be? (open)

Why it works: question 1 lets you segment everything else by usage. A complaint from a daily user and one from a rare user mean different things.

6. Onboarding questionnaire

1. How clear were your responsibilities in your first week? (1–5)
2. Did you have the equipment and access you needed on day one? (Yes / Partly / No)
3. How supported did you feel by your team? (1–5)
4. How accurate was the job description compared with the actual role? (1–5)
5. What was missing from your first month? (open)

Why it works: question 4 is the one most onboarding surveys skip, and it is the one that predicts early turnover.

7. Exit questionnaire

1. What is the main reason you are leaving? (single choice + “other”)
2. How long had you been considering it? (Under a month / 1–3 months / 3–6 months / Over 6 months)
3. Was there a point where something could have changed your mind? (open)
4. How would you rate your manager’s support? (1–5)
5. Would you consider returning in future? (Yes / Maybe / No)

Why it works: question 2 tells you whether you had a window to intervene. Most exit surveys ask only “why” and miss “when”.

8. Screener questionnaire

1. Which of these applies to you? (single choice — disqualify anything outside the target)
2. When did you last [RELEVANT BEHAVIOUR]? (time bands — disqualify “never” or “over a year ago”)
3. Do you or an immediate family member work in market research, marketing or [YOUR INDUSTRY]? (Yes disqualifies)

Why it works: this is the one case where the demographic question comes first, because its whole job is to decide who continues. Keep it to three questions — every screener question costs you qualified respondents too.

Adapting a survey questionnaire example to your own case

Copying one of these wholesale works more often than people expect, but four checks are worth making before you send.

Does every question map to a decision you could make? Go line by line and say what you would change depending on the answer. Anything with no answer to that is padding — and padding costs completions, which costs you the answers you did want.

Does the scale fit the thing you are measuring? Satisfaction and agreement are not interchangeable. “How satisfied are you with your workload?” is an odd question; “My workload is manageable” is not.

Would a sceptical respondent read any question as loaded? The fastest test is to read the questionnaire aloud. Leading wording is much easier to hear than to see on screen.

Is the survey questionnaire short enough for the channel you are using? Eight questions work by email. The same eight in a website widget, competing with whatever the visitor came to do, will not finish. Cut to three, or move the survey to a channel with more attention.

One further adaptation worth making for recurring studies: freeze the wording. The moment a survey questionnaire becomes a tracker, changing a question — even improving it — breaks comparability with every previous wave. Improve it once, note the date, and treat the results before and after as two different series.

Question types, with an example of each

One caution on ranking: it is harder to answer than it looks, and respondents tire of it quickly. Five items is the practical ceiling.

Wording mistakes that quietly ruin results

• Leading wording. “How much did you enjoy our excellent new checkout?” supplies the verdict. “How easy or difficult was the checkout?” does not.
• Double-barrelled questions. “Was the service fast and friendly?” has no valid answer for half of your respondents.
• Unbalanced scales. Options running from “good” to “outstanding” push every result upward.
• Jargon. If a question needs a glossary, the answer measures comprehension, not opinion.
• Absolutes. “Always” and “never” invite disagreement with the wording rather than the substance.
• Assumed behaviour. “How often do you use the dashboard?” has no honest answer from someone who never has. Add a qualifying question first.

Where demographic questions belong

At the end — with the screener as the only exception. Age, income and job title asked before the respondent knows what the survey is about are the single most common reason for abandonment on the first screen.

Two further rules worth keeping:

• Ask only what you will analyse. If you will not split results by age, do not collect age.
• Watch the group size. Once a demographic combination identifies a handful of people, the survey stops being anonymous whatever the intro says — the mechanics are covered in our anonymous survey guidance.

Turning these into a running survey

A questionnaire becomes a survey when it has a sample, a distribution plan and an analysis plan. Build the form in the survey creator, pick the distribution channel that matches your audience, and decide before you send what you will do with each possible result.

Two things worth setting up at the same time: a good introduction, because that screen decides how many people start at all, and the analysis side — feedback analytics groups open-text answers into themes, which is what makes that final open question worth including in the first place. Ready-made starting points live in our survey templates.

Conclusion

The best survey questionnaire examples are the short ones. Every example above fits on one screen or two, asks about one thing at a time, and ends with an open question that catches whatever the closed ones missed.

If you take one rule from this page: before adding a question, say out loud what you would do differently depending on the answer. If there is no answer to that, the question is costing you completions and buying you nothing.

Create a free account and build your first questionnaire from one of these examples.

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