What are surveys? Types, examples and tips for better insights

No doubt you’ve been asked how likely you are to recommend a product. That’s a survey in action — and your answer is doing way more than you think.

Surveys might seem simple on the surface, but behind every well-crafted question is a business chasing smarter decisions. 

From shaping product roadmaps to fine-tuning marketing messages, survey research helps companies listen, learn and lead. It’s a strategic asset that powers growth, validates ideas and keeps teams aligned with what customers actually want.

Below, we’ll break down survey fundamentals: what they are, how they work and how to use them to unlock insights that move your business forward.

What is a survey? 

A survey is a structured way to collect information from the people who matter to your business, typically through a series of questions. It’s how companies replace guesswork with real insights on just about any topic you can imagine: customers, brand health or employees. 

Say you want to test a new product idea, track brand sentiment or understand why customers behave a certain way — surveys offer a fast, scalable method for gathering feedback that allows you to delve into the psyche of your target audience.

There are two main approaches to survey design:

• Quantitative surveys: Use closed-ended questions like multiple choice, Likert scales or yes/no formats. They generate measurable data that is statistically reliable. Companies use these to spot trends, run comparisons over time or draw conclusions based on clear-cut research..
  
• Qualitative surveys: Ask open-ended questions that allow people to explain their thoughts in their own words. These responses are harder to quantify. However, they uncover context, motivations and deeper emotional drivers that numbers alone can’t reveal.

Often, the most effective surveys blend both approaches. While quantitative questions will give you the “what,” qualitative questions will help you understand the “why.”

ℹ️ Here’s a simple example:

• “How likely are you to recommend this product to a friend?” (quantitative data)
  
• “What’s the main reason for your score?” (qualitative data)
  

Together, the answers give you a mix of data you can measure and insight you can act on to make confident business decisions.

How surveys support better business decisions

Surveys enable teams to make decisions grounded in evidence, not instinct. One of the biggest survey benefits is that they bring the customer into the room before you commit budget, strike up new campaigns or make strategic moves.  

Here are a few ways to use surveys to drive smarter business outcomes.

• Launching new products: Before investing in product development, surveys help you test demand, gauge price sensitivity and understand what features people actually want. It means fewer missed marks and more products that land.
  
• Optimizing marketing messages: Test creative, refine positioning or choose between taglines. Surveys reveal what strikes a chord with your target audience and why. In turn, you can formulate messages that convert.
• Tracking brand health: Regular brand tracking surveys measure awareness, perception and recall across different audiences. They help you spot shifts early, benchmark against competitors and stay in control of your brand’s direction.
  
• Improving customer experience: Post-purchase or post-support surveys can identify friction points, highlight what’s working well and point to where you need to dig deeper. At the same time, they show customers you’re listening.
  
• Exploring new markets: Surveys make it easier to understand unfamiliar audiences. You can assess demand, test value propositions and uncover local nuances before expanding into new regions or segments.
  
• Refining customer profiles: Audience profiling can reveal how your ideal customer thinks, shops and behaves. As a result, you can build more accurate personas and sharpen your targeting across channels.

In short, survey data lets business stakeholders reduce guesswork and unlock clarity at every stage of the decision-making process.

Types of surveys

Different types of surveys are built to answer different business questions. Usually, they’re tied to specific company goals, for example, refining a product, evaluating brand perception or understanding customer satisfaction.

Here are some of the most common survey types and how they’re applied in a business context.

Customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT, NPS)

📊Use cases: Post-purchase surveys, follow-ups after customer support or quarterly check-ins to monitor loyalty and satisfaction trends.

Customer satisfaction surveys are designed to measure how happy customers are with your product, service or brand. Two common formats are Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), which asks customers to rate satisfaction with a specific interaction, and Net Promoter Score (NPS), which gauges overall loyalty by asking how likely someone is to recommend you.

The usual approach for CSAT or NPS surveys is to use rating scale questions (more on these below). This format allows you to quantify subjective opinions and monitor changes over time. 

Try this survey method when you want to:

• Identify friction points in the customer journey
  
• Track how satisfaction changes over time
  
• Improve retention by acting on negative feedback

Product feedback surveys

📊Use cases: Concept testing, beta feature feedback, onboarding experience surveys or usability assessments.

These surveys help you gather direct input on your product — whether you’re exploring a new idea, rolling out a feature or improving what already exists. They’re a fast way to validate assumptions and shape your roadmap based on real user needs.

Product feedback surveys assist with:

• Prioritizing product development based on customer needs
  
• Reducing the risk of failed features or launches
  
• Discovering unmet needs or usage patterns

Brand awareness surveys

📊Use cases: Pre- and post-campaign analysis, rebranding exercises or establishing the competitive market.

Brand awareness surveys take stock of how recognizable your brand is to your audience and how well they understand it. They typically include unaided awareness (“Which brands come to mind?”) and aided awareness (“Which of these have you heard of?”), along with questions about perception and sentiment.

Apply this type of survey when:

• Tracking campaign impact on awareness and perception
  
• Benchmarking against competitors
  
• Understanding gaps between brand intention and audience perception

Employee engagement surveys

📊Use cases: Quarterly or annual employee sentiment checks, pulse surveys during times of change, onboarding and exit feedback.

These internal surveys give you a read of how employees feel about their roles, teams and the wider company culture. They help flag issues early and show where to focus if you want to improve retention and performance.

Use these in the workplace to:

• Identify drivers of motivation and burnout
• Shape HR and management strategies
• Improve retention through targeted interventions

Consumer profiling surveys

📊Use cases: Audience deep dives, segmentation refreshes, campaign planning or tailoring content and creatives.

Consumer profiling surveys focus on who your customers are. By asking about demographics, behaviors and attitudes, you can build rich customer profiles that inform segmentation, targeting and campaign personalization. All the data gathered helps you pinpoint what matters to a targeted group and how to speak to them more effectively.

Typical business applications include:

• Power up audience segmentation
  
• Personalize messaging and offers
  
• Improve media targeting and spend efficiency

Market analysis surveys

📊Use cases: Market entry evaluations, investor decks, early-stage business planning or testing new propositions with unfamiliar audiences.

Market analysis surveys give you a strategic read on a new space — whether you’re entering a new region, launching a product or targeting a different audience. 

These surveys help you assess demand, understand competitive landscapes and test positioning before making a move. It’s a smart way to de-risk expansion and spot white space before you commit resources.

Typical business applications include:

• Testing positioning and messaging
  
• Assessing market demand
  
• Understanding competitive dynamics

The questions that drive results

The way you structure your research questions directly impacts the survey responses you receive. In turn, this affects the quality of insights from your survey data. Too many open-ended questions? You risk drop-off. Too many rating scales? You may miss the nuance behind the numbers.

There’s no one-size-fits-all question format. Each question type serves a specific purpose, whether you’re looking for hard metrics, directional sentiment or layered feedback. The trick is to choose formats that align with your goal. Then, strike the right balance between ease of response and depth of insight.

Here are some practical survey question types and when to use them.

Multiple choice

Multiple choice questions provide respondents with a defined set of answers to choose from. The questions are quick to answer and easy to analyze. Depending on the goal, you can allow respondents to select one answer (single-select) or multiple answers (multi-select).

These questions are especially useful when you:

• need structured data to identify patterns or trends
  
• want to validate assumptions (e.g. “Which of the following features do you use most often?”)
  
• segment audiences based on preferences or behaviors

ℹ️ Example:
Which of the following features do you use regularly?

(A) Dashboard
(B) Notifications
(C) Reports
(D) Settings

Likert scale

Likert scale questions ask respondents to rate their level of agreement, satisfaction, or frequency on a fixed scale — typically 5 or 7 points (e.g. Strongly disagree → Strongly agree). They’re ideal for measuring sentiment, attitude shifts or behavioral tendencies over time.

This question format is helpful in situations when:

• Tracking perceptions of your brand, product or service
  
• Measuring change (e.g. before and after a campaign or product update)
  
• Comparing attitudes across customer segments
  

ℹ️ Example:

I find the product easy to use.

☐ Strongly agree
☐ Agree
☐ Neutral
☐ Disagree
☐ Strongly disagree

Rating scale

Rating scale questions ask respondents to evaluate something on a numeric or visual scale — for example, 1 to 10, star ratings or emojis. These are often used to measure satisfaction or performance.

You might use rating scale questions when:

• You want a quick gut-check on customer experience (e.g. How would you rate your experience today?)
  
• You’re prioritizing features or ideas based on appeal
  
• You need clear benchmarks for performance over time
  

ℹ️ Example:

On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this product to a friend?

Open-ended

Open-ended questions allow respondents to answer in their own words, and offer qualitative insights that closed-ended questions can’t provide. 

While open-ended questions reveal the undertones behind customer choices, frustrations or ideas, it’s best to use these sparingly in your online surveys. This is because they take more effort to answer. Adding them at the end of the survey or after a rating can help to explore context. 

They’re best placed when you want to:

• Understand motivations or emotions (e.g. What’s the main reason you chose this brand?)
  
• Test new concepts and you need unfiltered feedback
  
• Quotes or stories to bring data to life

ℹ️ Example:

What’s one thing we could do to improve your experience?

Demographic questions

Demographic questions help you understand who your respondents are — their age, gender, location, income, education and more. This data powers audience segmentation and analysis.

The use case for demographic questions includes scenarios where:

• You’re building or refining customer personas
  
• You want to compare responses across different audience groups
  
• You need to qualify respondents for relevance (e.g. decision-makers only)
  

ℹ️ Example:

What is your job title?
Which industry do you work in?

Ready to launch your first survey? Start here

A well-structured survey should be designed with intent and tested before launch, all while keeping the end goal in mind. Rushed surveys lead to weak data. But a well-executed one is your fast track to real answers and smarter decisions.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started.

1. Define your goals

Start with a focused research question: What do you need to know to make a better business decision? 

You might want to test product-market fit, evaluate brand perception or gather feedback on a recent marketing campaign. A well-defined goal keeps your questions sharp and your survey data meaningful.

2. Identify your target audience

Clarify who you need to hear from: existing customers, lapsed users, potential buyers or internal teams. Your audience should match the goal. For example, brand tracking should reach your broader market, while usability testing might involve current users only.

Keep in mind that it’s impossible to survey the entire population, so you’ll need to work out a representative sample size. Choosing a well-balanced and relevant sample also helps minimize survey bias and ensure your results reflect the reality of your broader audience; not just the loudest or most available voices.

3. Choose your survey tools

Whatever insights you want to gather, you’ll need a suitable survey tool that fits your needs. Some of the better-known tools for data collection include:

• Attest: Get advanced targeting, faster turnaround and real-time audience access with a dedicated consumer research platform to streamline the process
• Google Forms: Works well for quick internal feedback or simple forms
• Typeform: For visually engaging surveys with a great UX
  

4. Design and test your survey

A common survey mistake during the design phase is overloading the questionnaire with too much information. A good rule of thumb is to keep your survey as short, focused and easy to complete as possible. Focus on using question types that align with your objectives and consider what purpose each answer will serve in the bigger business picture.  

It also helps to pre-test with a small group to catch confusing wording or logic issues that might impact the quality of your survey results.

5. Launch and distribute

When you’re ready to go live, consider the best way to reach your target audience. Your distribution method depends on your survey format, and both should align with where your audience already is. 

Surveys can be conducted in various ways:

• Face-to-face: Often distributed at physical locations like stores or events
  
• Over the phone: Typically via cold or warm calling
  
• Paper questionnaires: Handed out or mailed
  
• Online: Via email, social media, website pop-ups, or survey panels
  

While each format has its place, online surveys usually offer the most efficient, scalable and cost-effective approach. They’re faster to deploy, easier to analyze and allow for more precise targeting.

6. Analyze data and act on the results

Once responses are in, you must clean your data: remove duplicates, check for incomplete entries and categorize open-ended responses. After that, look for patterns that answer your original research question. Don’t just focus on what people said, but what it means for your business.

Also, segment responses by demographics or behavior to dig deeper and reveal trends that aren’t immediately apparent in the bigger picture. Visual tools, such as graphs and charts, and platform dashboards help you display and manipulate raw survey data to access information at a surface level. 

But you must also decide what action the data supports. Does your survey research indicate it’s time to shift strategy, refine messaging or greenlight a product feature? Strategic value doesn’t come from the numbers alone — it comes from knowing exactly what to do with your data.

What to do with your data

It’s a big challenge to analyze survey results and transform rows of raw data into a clear, confident business direction.

Start by organizing your findings. Not every data point needs airtime. Focus on what’s relevant to your original goals, then group similar responses together. Categorizing your data helps surface patterns that inform strategy and weed out noise that could distract decision-makers.

Visualize the results to make them digestible. Use charts and graphs to present your findings and help stakeholders understand the data at speed. Choose your formats based on what you’re trying to show:

• Bar charts for comparing sentiment or frequency across groups
  
• Line graphs for tracking trends over time
  
• Pie charts for understanding proportional breakdowns
  
• Venn diagrams to highlight overlaps in behaviors or attitudes
  

Next, build an easy-to-absorb report that tells the full story. A spreadsheet alone won’t do. Use infographics to simplify complexity and consider turning key personas or findings into narrative snapshots. Pull in direct quotes or structure feedback like a conversation to bring the data to life.

When creating a report, tailor it to the person, department or audience it’s being developed for. An executive team might need a concise, high-level summary with sharp visuals and clear implications for strategy. On the other hand, a brand manager may want deeper context, more granular breakdowns and direct quotes that bring customer sentiment to life. Match the level of detail and format to what each stakeholder needs to act.

In the end, your report should serve as more than a record. It should be a tool that teams across the business can return to and say: Does this align with what we know from the data? That’s when you know your survey is doing its job.

Great decisions start with the right questions

Surveys aren’t just a box to tick — they’re a strategic tool for staying close to your audience and making better business decisions. When done well, surveys surface insights that help you build stronger products, sharper messaging and a brand that customers can relate to. 

Whether you’re validating a new idea or tracking brand perception, the quality of your questions will define the quality of your insights. Want to sharpen your survey skills even further? Explore our guide to writing better survey questions and start asking smarter.