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20 MARKET RESEARCH QUESTIONS TO ASK IN YOUR

CUSTOMER SURVEY

by Adi Bhat (https://www.questionpro.com/blog/author/adityabhat/)

Global VP - Sales and Marketing at QuestionPro

Home  Consumer Insights  Market Research Search Blogs Search

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(https://www.questionpro.com/blog/market-research-questions/)

What are Market Research Questions?

Market research questions is a questionnaire that is answered by customers or

potential consumers, to understand their perception and opinion on a given
subject, typically pertaining to product or service feasibility, understanding
consumer needs and interests, and pricing concepts.

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For example: A customer survey (https://www.questionpro.com/survey-
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templates/customer-satisfaction-surveys/) on market research of an existing
product line that focuses on the usefulness of speci c features in a product line.
Based on the feedback received from this survey, a business can now decide which
features to invest and enhance/improve, and which features to relatively
defocus/discontinue. This research, therefore, enables a business to ef ciently
allocate resources based on real, data-oriented insights from their own customers.

A similar set of market research questions can also be sent to potential consumers
of a product, to understand market absorption capability.

The primary reason you conduct any customer survey with market research
questions is to make effective decisions that grow your business by selling more to
both existing customers, as well as by acquiring new customers by increasing the
effectiveness of your product/service to better suit their needs. But when you take
even a closer look, we’re making these decisions because the main objective is to
become the obvious choice for that ideal customer. For that to happen and to reach
market research (https://www.questionpro.com/blog/what-is-market-research/)
goals, you need to ask:

What Market Research Questions should I ask in my Customer Survey?

1. Who is our ideal customer?

These are typically demographic
(https://www.questionpro.com/blog/demographic-survey-questions/) market
research questions such as gender, education level, income level or location.
 You can expand these questions to nd out your customer’s occupation or if
your ideal customer is a parent, pet owner. Don’t skimp on demographics or
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 psychographics (https://www.questionpro.com/survey-
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templates/psychographic-demographic-surveys/).  If anything, get really
creative with them. You might consider conducting a survey with nothing but
pro ling questions that include where your customers shop, or where they
prefer to eat. It’s critical to know as much as possible about your ideal
customer so that you can begin focusing your marketing decisions around
their preferences.

2. What do they struggle with?

Another root set of data that market researchers are searching for within their
ideal customer is “what they struggle with.”  What are the 5 to 7 frustrations
that they are dealing with when it comes to interacting with our product or
service? If you are a golf accessories company and you ask your ideal customer
what frustrates them about their gol ng experience, you might get responses
such as “expensive golf clubs getting wet during a rainstorm.”  If you get
enough of those responses, you may think about developing a golf accessory
that protects golf clubs in the rain.

3. What does your ideal customer really WANT?

No matter how you phrase the market research questions (and there are
countless creative formats) all we really want to know is what our customer
will actually purchase as a solution.  What is it that they WANT? Of course,
they’re NOT going to say that they want something that doesn’t exist yet — in
the 1960’s the average person would NOT have known that they wanted a
microwave. They wanted hot food fast. One good way to get at these wants is
to give your respondents some examples of product offerings and
combinations and see how they rate them.

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4. What sets you apart from your competition?
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Competitive analysis and bench-marking is critical if you want to increase the
pro tability of your product and build your brand. An effective way to measure
or identify differentiators or competitive advantage is to ask Customer
Satisfaction questions (https://www.questionpro.com/survey-
templates/customer-satisfaction-surveys). The key to asking these kinds of
market research questions is getting the attributes just right.  For example
“How important is it that your tires have a run- at safety feature?” instead of
asking “How important is it that your car has tires.”

For example: A survey can be conducted by either Apple or Samsung to nd

out how satis ed are the customers with their products and what are the other
features that the consumer prefers from the competitive brand. Using such
data a company can incorporate features based on the demand and can also
benchmark their features which the customers prefer. An Apple vs Samsung
Survey Questions (https://www.questionpro.com/a/q/apple-vs-samsung-
3582134) template can help to achieve the data required to compare their
products with the competition and strategize accordingly.

What bene ts do your customers perceive?

Because we all choose and purchase based on emotion — it’s important to
understand speci cally, what emotional bene ts our customers receive from
our products and services. The more we connect with our customers on an
emotional level and provide that bene t — the more likely they are to choose
us. This is an ideal place to use matrix questions that rate the degree to which
customers agree or disagree with a variety of “bene t” statements.  Here is an
example “I can count on Service X to pull me out of a bind.”
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5. Who is currently buying from us? FREE ACCOUNT (/A/SHOWENTRY.DO?SOURCEREF=BLOG)

A very important research metric to track is the “who” is currently buying a

product or a service from you. Deriving a pattern from the current purchasing
population, helps you target and market to a similar potential demographic.
This also is an ideal place to use demographic questions extensively but it also
helps if other factors like geographical metrics are tracked. You don’t want to
be ignoring your existing customer base and also be smart and agile in
attracting new business to your brand.

6. Why are other people not buying from us?

Whilst it is imperative to know who is your potential customer or map your
existing customer base, it is very important for you to nd out who is not
buying from you. This information is important to understand if there are
shortcomings in a product or service and at what milestone do customers drop
out of the purchasing process (https://www.questionpro.com/survey-
templates/product-purchase-process/). This also helps to identify in the way
your business is conducted, if additional training is required to make a sale or
if your product or service lacks in quality. By understanding why people are
not buying from you also helps monitor if there is something fundamentally
wrong in what you are offering to the masses.

7. Who can buy from us in the future?

It is a known fact that is about 10x more expensive to create a new customer
rather than to maintain the one you currently have. That however is no reason
to not aim for new business. It is therefore important to have a clear picture of
your potential future business. Targeting potential customers, is a mix of
customer demographics (https://www.questionpro.com/blog/demographic-
segmentation/) that have purchased from you in the past and a mix of
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 demographics you advertise and market to. It is therefore important to have a
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well-rounded product or solution. For example, since your barbecue sauces
and rubs are famous and widely used in the midwest does not mean they
cannot be bought in Southern States.

8. Why do people buy from you? What value or need does it ful ll?
Customers only buy from you because of a perceived value. This value is either
what you depict to potential customers or repeat customers have been privy to
the value of your product or service. Customers also make a purchase because
of the trust they have either in the product or service or the brand or
sometimes even certain individuals. It is therefore important that you
understand the value of your brand and stick to the morals and ethics of
delivering high quality to ensure that the perceived and actual brand quotient
is very high. The other reason why customers purchase from you is if their
need is ful lled by what you have on offer. This could either be a direct or an
indirect need.

9. What would make you a perfect brand?

No brand can be perfect! But you can surely be close to perfect. What this
means is everything about your product or service is easy to use, intuitive, is
value for money, scalable and ancillary support is impeccable. All of this is
obviously immaterial if the product does not solve a real problem or make life
easier for the customer. Having a very high customer oriented focus gives your
brand a positive ring and becomes increasingly the go-to brand. You can use a
simple Net Promoter Score (https://www.questionpro.com/features/net-
promoter-score.html) question to understand how referrable is your brand and
who are the promoters and detractors of your brand.

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10. What single aspect about your brand makes it stand out and makes clients
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trust you?
People buy from you or transact with you mostly when there is a high trust
factor. Very rarely is the purchasing decision purely based on need or ease of
access. To identify and build on that one factor that makes you a preferred
buying choice over your competitors is very important. You can map preferred
aspects of your brand to age, sex, geographical location
(https://www.questionpro.com/blog/geographic-segmentation/), nancial
limitations etc. because each of those factors can appeal to your brand
differently. It is important that you identify and fortify those aspects of your
business. Your brand can also be preferred because of other factors like
personnel, customer service, ethos and perception amongst peers, consumers
and the society alike. Abercrombie & Fitch was a respected brand but lost a lot
of market share and goodwill due to CEO’s words in one isolated incident. It
takes lots of work and time to build trust but takes none to lose all of it!

11. What is the best way to communicate with the kind of people you are trying to
reach out to?
What’s caused the downfall for a lot of brands is the inability to reach out to
target customers despite their product or service being impeccable. Not
knowing how to reach your target audience or potential customer makes all
your hardwork go down the drain. For example, if a new life saving drug is
making its way to the market but medical professionals and doctors don’t
know about it or how to administer it and its bene ts, about 20 years of work
goes down the drain. You need to identify the right channels and avenues to
reach out to the people that will consume your product or service.

12. What do customers make of your product and/or service line?

There are a few brands that have one product or service and that rakes in the /
 customers and money for them because the nature of the product or service.
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But most brands aren’t this way! They would need to branch out into multiple
products or services or very often, a mix of both. It is therefore important to
understand the value of your products and/or services. It is imperative to
know if they solve a problem a customer has or make life easier for the
customer or any other such reason. This helps in consolidating the customer
base.

13. What improvements could be made to your products or services to have a

wider reach?
A product or a service has never achieved the maximum number of customers
it can get. There always is someone who could use your product or service;
maybe not in the form that it currently is but there is scope to scale. This
makes it so much more important to collect periodic feedback on what
additions your current customer base would like to see in your brand and what
can bring in new customers from your competitors. Chipping away at
deadwood features and making increased usability tweaks increases the
adoption and use of your product and service.For example: A retail store wants
to promote the use of their self-service checkout systems. However, a lot of
customers still are not opting for the system. There can be many reasons to
why the customer is choosing not to use the system, like complex operating,
no readability, or even slow speed of the system. To understand the reason
why, a Usability survey for self-service checkouts
(https://www.questionpro.com/survey-templates/usability-survey-for-self-
service-checkouts/) can be conducted. This will enable the store to gather rst
hand information from the customers and make improvements in the system
accordingly.

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14. What product or service improvements should be made to ensure a superior
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user experience?
Understanding service or product stagnation and imitation serves as a perfect
segway to this question. In a “what’s new?” hungry market this is “THE”
question to ask. Most of your customers aren’t looking for out of this world,
unimagined, unforeseeable products or services. They’re looking for simple
solutions that would solve their day to day problems. Your customers will not
know what next big thing you should launch but they will know their
frustrations and struggles. It is essential to frame your survey question right,
instead of asking “what improvements can we make to our product or service?”
, ask “what is your current struggle in your business?”, “what service would
improve the quality of your business?”. Approach from a point of “what can we
do for you?” rather than “what can we do for our service or product?”. The key
to bundling service or product is adding value to your customers’ business. It’s
a sure way to deliver value, build trust and retain a loyal customer base.

Learn More: User Interface Survey Template

(https://www.questionpro.com/survey-templates/user-interface-survey-
questions/)

15. What is the right price to charge?

Pricing a product or service (https://www.questionpro.com/survey-
templates/product-surveys/) is one of the most important aspects of your
business. Pricing right can decide the revenue, brand perception, pro tability
and adoption of the product or service. Pricing too slow has a negative
connotation and may increase in bringing in a lower revenue. Pricing high gives
the feeling of being elite and then the pro tability and revenue hinges on the
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 factors of per unit adoption rather than a very high adoption. Pricing just right
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is a myth – what someone nds cheap, someone else could nd expensive.
Where someone nds your product or service value for money, others may nd
it exorbitant. Hence, it is important to collect extensive feedback from your
existing and potential customers about what they think is an ideal price to
play. It is also important to conduct a due diligence of competitors to map how
they price versus the service and product features they provide. All of these
factors will help you come close to an “ideal price” to charge.

16. What is the vision for the brand?

A vision for a brand dictates the level the brand aspires to be and wants to
scale up to be. Apple is now a preferred phone because the vision was to be an
experience, not a device. The device is the means to ensuring that vision. They
wanted to make the ecosystem so robust that any device you use, that
familiarity and ease of use is standardized but also stonewall easy. Despite
being expensive and facing ridicule during early days due to the ecosystem
being different, they are now a one trillion behemoth, more than the GDP of
some countries, due to having a vision for the brand.

17. What is the way to ensure you reach that vision?

A vision is easy to have but tough to follow through on. This is because your
vision may see many roadblocks and may not be the current avor of the
market; but it is the right thing to stick with it. Innovate in your product and
service lines by taking into consideration as to what your customers want and
need and things they themselves don’t know that they need. Despite enduring
hardships, if you stick to your vision, it is a lot easier to use that as a
launchpad for being an immaculate and preferred brand.

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18. What should the brand branch out into to avoid stagnation or imitation?
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While launching a product or service, it’s essential to understand where your
competitors stand on the same product type or service line. How soon can
they catch up to you and imitate your service or product? Stagnation, on the
other hand, is what brings the ultimate demise of a brand, product or service
line. With little innovation and competitors saturating the market by imitating
your product or service line, you’ll soon see customer base dwindle. To ensure,
your customers don’t drop out the key question to ask is “What next?”. The
best way to innovate or bundle your product or service is to understand what
your customers struggle with and what value they are looking for. For example,
Sony is known for its PlayStations but competitors like Xbox don’t take long to
catch up to their new products. How Sony does manage to stay ahead of the
market is by constantly branching into new products and services.

19. What bundled service or product that you can offer in conjunction with yours?
Good partnerships are hard to come by, strategic ones are even harder. This
question tackles two of your problems, how to offer  something new to your
customers and how to reduce competitors in market. Your bundled service or
product though has to make sense to the use, should complement your brand
and cannot be an operational and logistical nightmare for your brand which
then makes it counter-productive. Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram to
consolidate on social images and short content rich video, is a strategic
initiative to increase customer base as well as reduce competition at the same
time. The key to building strong brand partnerships is to ensure your vision
and product values align. Summing up, offering a bundled service or product
in partnership will not only retain existing customer base but also attract and
increase new customers.

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No matter why you are conducting a survey, you’ll nd these 20 questions at the
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core of “WHY” you want to know. Remember, your respondents will read or spend
time with absolutely ANYTHING as long as they are at the center of it.  Be sure to
keep these 20 questions in mind when creating your survey and everyone involved
will save time, aggravation and money.

Beyond these 20 market research questions, here are 300+ Ready-made Survey
Templates (https://www.questionpro.com/survey-templates/) for you to use
completely Free!

TAGS: Market Research Software (https://www.questionpro.com/blog/market-research-

software/) MR (https://www.questionpro.com/blog/mr/) Research

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