Form questions

In store survey questions

Ask eight to twelve, reached from a sign at the counter or a line on the receipt. Three are never cut: which store, how long the wait was, and whether they found what they came in for. The store question is first because a response without it cannot be sent to anybody who can act on it.

A store survey is answered standing up, on a phone, by somebody who is already on their way out. It has to be short, and it has to record which store and which day, because a chain average describes no branch that anybody manages.

The questions

The visit

  1. Which store did you visit?DropdownRequired

    First question, always. Everything else is unusable without it, and a chain wide average hides the one branch with a problem.

  2. What day was it?Date

  3. Roughly what time?Dropdown

    Wait times and staffing are a time of day problem, so the hour band is worth more than most people expect.

  4. How busy did the store seem?Dropdown

  5. How long did you wait to be served?Single choiceRequired

  6. What did you come in for?Single choice

The staff

  1. The person who served youRating gridRequired

    Five statements on an agreement scale: acknowledged me quickly, knew the products, gave me room, handled payment quickly, I would be happy to be served by them again.

  2. Did anybody offer to help you?Single choice

  3. Did you have to look for somebody?Single choice

  4. Were you told about anything useful you did not already know?Single choice

  5. Did anything about the service feel rushed?Single choice

The store

  1. Did you find what you came in for?Single choiceRequired

  2. If not, what was it?Short text

    The single most valuable field in a store survey and the one most often left out.

  3. How clean and tidy was the store?Single choice

  4. Which of these did you notice?Multiple choice

    Prices hard to find, aisles blocked, one register open, shelves not restocked, untidy display area, nothing to report.

  5. How easy was it to find your way around?Single choice

  6. Did you buy anything?Single choice

Coming back

  1. How likely are you to come back to this store?Single choice

  2. Have you shopped at this store before?Single choice

  3. Would you have bought this online instead if you could?Single choice

  4. Anything else about today?Long text

    Optional, and worth saying in the placeholder that a first name is enough for a manager to recognise a staff member.

Which questions to make required

Four are required. The store, because the response goes to a named manager. The wait, because it is the number the roster is built from. The staff grid, because it is the measure. And whether they found what they came for, because stock and service are the two things a store controls, and a survey that only measures service reports half the visit.

The form built from these questions

A static copy of a form built from part of the bank, exactly as it renders.

How was your visit?

Fourteen fields, about three minutes. The store and the day are the only things that identify the visit, and there is no field for your name.

The visit

The staff

Answer the grid for the person who served you rather than for the store as a whole. If nobody served you, leave the grid empty and say so in the comment at the end.
Strongly disagreeDisagreeNeutralAgreeStrongly agree
Acknowledged me within a minute of my arriving
Knew the products well enough to help
Gave me room rather than following me around
Handled the payment quickly
I would be happy to be served by them again

The store

Three ways to change this bank

For a restaurant or a cafe, replace the stock section with the order: how long from sitting down to ordering, whether the order arrived correct, and whether anybody checked back during the meal. Those three carry most of what a venue can fix, and the staff grid works unchanged. For a shorter version, ask four on a receipt link: which store, how long you waited, did you find what you came for, and one comment. Four questions answered in the car park beats twelve answered at home by nobody. For a follow up wave, do not resurvey the same customers. Run the same four questions continuously and read them by store and by week, because a store survey is a monitoring instrument rather than a study.

Questions people ask

How do people reach an in store survey?

A short link or code on the receipt, a sign at the counter, or a card handed over with the bag. Whichever you choose, the survey has to work on a phone in one hand, which is the real constraint on length. Keep the link short enough to type, because not everybody scans.

Should it collect a name?

No. A store survey works better anonymous, and leaving out the name field is what makes the comments honest about staff. If a customer needs something resolved they should be directed to the counter or the contact page instead, which is worth saying on the thank you screen.

How short does it have to be?

Eight to twelve questions is the ceiling, and four is better if the link is on a receipt. Most of the questions should be taps rather than typing. One open comment at the end is enough, and putting it first costs you the structured answers the store manager reports on.

What response rate should I expect?

Very low as a share of foot traffic, and that is expected, because most customers never see the invitation. Volume comes from how visible the sign is. Judge the survey on whether each store gets enough responses a week to spot a pattern, rather than on a percentage.

Why record the time of day?

Because wait time, staffing and tidiness are all functions of the hour. A store that scores badly overall is often a store that scores badly between four and six. Without the time band the manager gets a number and no lever, and the survey turns into a complaint about the staff.

Can the results be compared between stores?

Yes, provided the wording never changes and every store uses the same link. Export gives one column per field with the store in its own column, so sorting by branch takes no extra setup. Compare stores of similar size and traffic rather than ranking the whole chain on one grid score.

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Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .