50 Customer Onboarding Survey Questions to Ask

Table of Contents

Customer onboarding is a make-or-break process for any app. If your onboarding falls short of customer expectations or needs, getting them to adopt is an uphill battle.

But how do you know if your onboarding process is up to par? Sometimes, the best way to find out is to just ask!

A customer onboarding survey helps you connect with new users to see how your onboarding process stacks up. Here’s everything you need to know about creating and implementing onboarding surveys — and 50 example questions to ask.

What Is A Customer Onboarding Survey?

A customer onboarding survey is a series of questions sent to new users to better understand their needs, goals, expectations, and challenges. It helps curate a more targeted user onboarding process, allowing new users to fast-track their path to reaching their “aha!” moment.

Customer onboarding and welcome surveys create new opportunities for personalization and enable users to provide insights that lead to an all-around better onboarding experience. Keeping them engaged and involved from day one can improve user activation and retention rates.

Types of Customer Onboarding Survey Question Formats

Different question formats are more useful for gathering certain types of information. Here are the common types of customer onboarding survey question formats and how they can be used.

1. Single Choice

A single-choice survey question presents response options for users to choose the single best answer.

Example: “What department do you work in?”

Single-choice questions are easy for respondents to answer and help group users into relevant categories. They work best when only the user’s top response is important.

2. Multiple Choice

A multiple-choice survey question allows users to select multiple options from a provided list.

Example: “Which product features are you most excited to use?”

Multiple-choice questions are another easy-to-answer format, helping to reduce response friction and improve survey completion rates.

3. Likert Scale

The Likert Scale asks respondents to rate their level of agreement or disagreement with a particular statement.

Example: “I was satisfied with my onboarding experience.”

Likert Scale questions allow you to collect insights on customer satisfaction and sentiment.

4. Closed-Ended

Closed-ended questions offer predefined responses for users to choose from. They might also offer an “other” option to allow users to offer another response.

Example: “What do you hope to accomplish by using this product?”

A closed-ended question simplifies replies and can help keep the participant engaged with your survey.

5. Open-Ended

An open-ended question allows participants to provide their own responses using their own words.

Example: “What improvements would you like to see in this platform?”

An open-ended survey question gives users the opportunity to share their thoughts, opinions, and ideas without predefined barriers, but they do require more effort from participants.

Benefits of Customer Onboarding Feedback Surveys

Onboarding feedback surveys are a quick way to check in with new users so you can deliver a better onboarding experience. Here’s how implementing a new user survey can benefit you.

1. Segments users for personalized onboarding

Asking a few quick questions about your user before the onboarding process begins allows you to sort them into the appropriate onboarding cohort. Segmenting users based on their role, department, or end goals can help them reach that “aha! moment” faster.

Here are a few ways you can use surveys to deliver a more personalized onboarding experience:

  • Build custom onboarding flows that fit the unique needs of each role.
  • Provide more in-depth walkthroughs of the features or tools users express initial interest in.
  • Offer personalized learning and self-help recommendations based on role, department, or goals.

2. Provides insights into customer expectations and preferences

Keeping new customers intrigued is one of the most important parts of an onboarding process. Surveys are a great way to gather new user insights into their expectations, needs, and ideas.

Using data from your onboarding questionnaires, you can identify the most popular features, what features need improvement, and what specific user groups want from your platform. You can use this information to develop a product roadmap that better suits users’ needs.

3. Identifies areas of friction and improves user onboarding

An onboarding survey will help shed light on areas that still need improvement. While onboarding analytics and user behavior data are one way to identify friction points, they don’t provide the same context that users themselves can offer.

A survey lets users give explanations, ideas, and qualitative insights to support your analytics and reports.

Customer Onboarding Survey Best Practices

Implementing best practices that optimize customer onboarding surveys is crucial for gathering valuable insights and enhancing the onboarding experience.

Here is a detailed guide on the best practices for conducting effective customer onboarding surveys.

  • Keep surveys short: Take advantage of micro-surveys by asking one or two questions throughout the onboarding process. A survey that is too long can push users away.
  • Define the survey’s objectives: Make it clear what information you’re attempting to gather with your survey. Offer a short sentence or two describing your intention at the beginning of your questionnaire.
  • Use a mix of question types: Multiple question types can keep surveys more interesting and engaging. They also allow users to answer the questions they want while skipping ones they don’t.
  • Ensure questions are easy to understand: Your questions should be concise and direct. Focus on simple, clear language and questions that are easy to understand and respond to.
  • Segment responses: Segment your users based on their responses. You can use this information later to deliver more personalized experiences.
  • Use feedback to make tangible onboarding improvements: Make the most of the insights you’ve gathered by continuously improving your product and onboarding process. Incorporate the feedback provided to show users you’re listening.

Tools to Collect Customer Onboarding Feedback

Here are four tools to use to collect customer onboarding feedback.

1. Whatfix

  • G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
  • Price: Available on request

Whatfix makes it easy to implement customer onboarding surveys directly into your app. Whatfix’s in-app surveys make it easier to connect with your users and reduce friction, improving response rates so you can collect better insights.

whatfix-flow-and-survey

Key features: 

  • Timed surveys delivered at a specific time or after a specific action is complete.
  • No-code editor and in-app survey implementation.
  • Built-in user behavior and engagement analytics to combine qualitative and quantitative data in one place.

2. SurveyMonkey

  • G2 Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
  • Price: Starting at $39/month

SurveyMonkey is an all-in-one platform for surveys and forms. It’s designed to make creating and sending surveys easy and fast, and includes a template marketplace and AI-powered creation tools.

Key features: 

  • Built-in analytics to make reading and analyzing survey responses easy.
  • Integrations with leading apps allow you to incorporate surveys into your existing workflow.
  • Multiple question types to diversify your surveys

3. Typeform

  • G2 Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Price: Starting at $25/month

Typeform allows you to create beautiful, brand-friendly forms. Catch your participants’ eye and keep them engaged with images, customizable color palettes, and more.

Key features: 

  • Ability to embed surveys in emails, on social media, or on your landing pages.
  • Logic-based questions to prompt users for more information based on responses.
  • Simplified analytics to track completion rate and responses.

4. Qualtrics

  • G2 Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
  • Price: Available on request

Qualtrics is an experience management platform that helps you connect with customers, employees, and the market. Qualtrics’ survey software enables you to create, share, and analyze everything from simple surveys to in-depth research questionnaires.

Key features: 

  • Integrate surveys with your CRM, website, social media, email, and more.
  • Drag-and-drop survey building or access to a template library.
  • Multiple question types, including video and audio responses.

Software Clicks Better with Whatfix

Whatfix is more than just a survey platform. It provides all the tools you need to onboard, educate, and connect with your users throughout their entire customer journey — in-app surveys are just one part of that process.

With Whatfix, you can:

  • Implement a mix of in-app surveys to connect with users when it matters most.
  • Analyze user behavior data to gain a better understanding of user needs and expectations.
  • Continuously support users to improve adoption rates.

Ready to see how Whatfix can help your software click better? Request a demo today!

Like this article? Share it with your network.
What Is Whatfix?
Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that provides organizations with a no-code editor to create in-app guidance on any application that looks 100% native. With Whatfix, create interactive walkthroughs, product tours, task lists, smart tips, field validation, self-help wikis, hotspots, and more. Create replica sandbox environments of your enterprise software to provide hands-on end-user training. Understand how users are engaging with your applications with advanced product analytics to benchmark KPIs time-to-completion and process governance, empowering you to make data-driven improvements to your application workflows.
DAP GUIDE
What Is a Digital Adoption Platform?
GET STARTED
Software Clicks Better With Whatfix
Subscribe to the
Digital Adoption Insider Newsletter
Join our monthly newsletter for best practices, insights, and trends on user adoption, technology ROI, digital workplace, and product-led experiences.
whatfix-logo-new-1
Engage users with in-app guidance and analyze usage with Whatfix's no-code platform.
whatfix-in-app-guidance-cta