How to Create Product Surveys Users Want to Answer

Product surveys help product managers collect direct user feedback, enabling teams to understand needs, identify pain points, and improve the overall customer experience.

Many users abandon surveys before they finish them. But targeted, in-product surveys—delivered at the right time—can uncover precisely what’s working in your product (and what’s not).

This guide covers how to design surveys that users want to answer and how to use the insights to drive product decisions.

What are product surveys?

Product surveys are structured questionnaires to collect direct user feedback about their experience with your product. They are essential in product research, especially when validating ideas or measuring user sentiment around feature changes.

Unlike general market research, in-product surveys gather feedback from active users, making the data more relevant and actionable. When designed well, product surveys provide a continuous feedback loop of insight that drives better product decisions without disrupting the user experience in the process.

10 best practices for engaging in-product surveys

Let’s dive into the core principles of creating surveys that users will actually fill out. Here they are:

1. Define your goal

A clear goal informs the questions you’ll ask and the type of survey you’ll use. It ensures your questions are relevant to the problem you’re solving and focused on gathering useful answers. Before writing your survey, determine what metrics you want to track. For example, if your goal is to improve onboarding, ask about specific steps in the process rather than just gauging general customer satisfaction.

Poorly defined goals lead to vague results. Instead of “Get feedback on our product,” a better goal is “Understand if users struggle with setting up integrations.” This level of specificity will help you get feedback that directly informs decisions.

Review user behavior analytics to identify friction points. Where are users dropping off, displaying confusion, or requesting support? Wherever users are struggling is often the best place to focus your survey.

2. Prioritize frequency over length

Some product managers assume their users prefer fewer surveys, leading to long, cumbersome forms when they finally request feedback. Users often abandon surveys when they realize it’s too long. If they open it up and see “Page 1/5,” they may quit before they fill it in.

Instead, send short, targeted surveys more often to gather specific insights. For example, an ecommerce app evaluating its checkout process usability can send a survey focused only on that topic rather than a broad questionnaire. If there’s another feature the company wants to hear from users about, they can send a separate survey.

3. Choose the right survey type

Different survey types work best for different situations, so choosing the right one helps you get the most useful feedback—whether you need to measure satisfaction, understand user behavior, or gather detailed insights about a specific feature.

Some of the most common product survey types include:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS measures how likely users are to recommend your product. This type of survey is best for tracking overall customer sentiment over time.
• Rating-based surveys (e.g., 1-10, stars, emojis): This type helps measure trends, like how easily users can navigate or interact with a feature. Rating-based surveys are best for identifying patterns in user experience.
• Open-ended questions: These questions allow users to describe their experience in their own words. These are best for uncovering pain points and understanding user motivations.

For example, an NPS survey can help a SaaS platform measure customer loyalty, while a short open-ended survey after feature use can reveal why users adopt it or don’t. Using both methods provides a complete picture

4. Balance your question types for deeper insights

Combining qualitative and quantitative survey questions can yield a clearer picture of user needs. Quantitative data shows trends—like how many users drop off at a certain step—while qualitative survey responses explain why issues occur. For example, open-ended questions help uncover user motivations and frustrations, while multiple-choice questions can help you quickly identify usage patterns.

This mix helps you capture measurable trends and their context, which is essential for making confident product decisions.

5. Offer incentives to boost participation

Incentives can increase survey participation and improve response quality. Emails asking for feedback often promise Amazon gift cards. However, in-product surveys rarely incentivize users, even though incentives are a proven way to increase the response rate.

Instead of generic responses like “Give us some feedback, please,” try more compelling offers such as “Get free beta access for your input.” This tactic works especially well for new products or new product features where a high response rate is needed.

6. Embed micro-surveys in user workflows

To get more feedback, integrate micro-surveys into existing user actions. For example, after a product tour, include a quick question like, “Did this help you understand our product?” Users are more likely to respond when surveys feel like a natural part of their experience.

Additionally, creating survey templates for micro-surveys ensures you can quickly deploy them without extensive development time.

7. Personalize surveys and target the right audience

Personalized surveys often feel more useful to users, which can help you gather insights specific to their experience. Tailor surveys based on the user journey instead of asking every user the same broad questions.

For example, saying, “We need your feedback,” is too generic. If users don’t feel like you’re talking to them directly, they may skip the survey altogether. On the other hand, saying, “We’re looking for feedback from users who recently upgraded,” makes it clear who the survey is for and why their input matters.

Targeting is a key part of personalization. When you send surveys to a specific user group—like new users after their first week or long-time customers testing a beta feature—you’re tailoring the questions to their experience. This approach leads to more relevant feedback that helps you make informed product decisions.

8. Get feedback on your survey design

Gather input on the design of your product survey itself. Surveys can have friction points (such as confusing wording, unclear answer choices, or an inconvenient format) that reduce completion rates. Getting feedback internally or with a small group of users (and refining it) before a full rollout can help catch issues early.

9. Deliver the survey at the optimal time

When you survey users immediately after they complete an action, their feedback is often more accurate and useful since it’s at the top of their minds. Asking for input too early, like right after signing in, doesn’t give users much to comment on or provide feedback on (unless you’re asking them about the sign-in process).

Instead, time your survey delivery to follow important actions, like completing a purchase, using a new feature, or publishing content. This approach helps you gather customer feedback when details are still fresh. For example, a product feedback survey triggered right after users explore a new pricing tier can provide insights into how they feel about the costs. Similarly, if a user struggles to complete a task, a well-timed survey reveals friction points in your product’s functionality that impact retention and contribute to churn.

By aligning the delivery of your survey with user actions, you’ll capture feedback that fiercely informs product development and leads to more meaningful improvements.

10. Test and iterate

A well-designed survey can miss the mark if it hasn’t been tested. Before sending it to your target audience, run it internally or with a small group of respondents to catch unclear wording, confusing answer choices, or unnecessary friction in the design.

If too many people abandon the survey midway, it may be too long, poorly timed, or poorly designed. A strong testing phase helps you refine your feedback process to collect more actionable insights. For example, if a customer satisfaction survey returns vague responses, adjusting the questions to be more specific, such as asking about customer experience with a particular feature, can yield better data.

Regularly iterating on surveys ensures they continue to meet customer needs and provide insights that drive meaningful product improvements.

Use product surveys to support ongoing product improvement

Effective surveys do more than gather opinions—they provide the valuable insights needed to improve your product. To keep them useful, regularly review responses, experiment with timing and format, and refine your approach based on what works best for your target audience.