7 Questions to Add to Your Customer Satisfaction Survey

You can adapt these questions further, or use some and discard others. The most important thing is to find out how your customers' experiences are unfolding. A few of the top questions to ask are:

1. How would you rate your dining experience today?

An open-ended answer will not work with a question like this on a survey. Add a rating from 1 to 5 and clearly state that:

  • 1 = poor
  • 5 = excellent

You can add a box to allow the person to explain further if you wish.

If you have a lot of people responding in the 1 to 3 range, it's time to learn what's going on to make them unhappy. Wait times may be too long, food may arrive cold or service may be slow. In all cases, change is necessary if you hope to bring these patrons back.

2. What did you like most about your visit?

You can make this an open-ended question or a multiple-choice one. For most eateries, an open-ended question will cover more possibilities and is the better option to add to a customer feedback survey.

If people liked the food and service the most, this is a good sign that you're doing something right.

3. Was the staff friendly and helpful during your meal?

Make this a yes or no question. You can add another field where people can explain their answer, but do not make this a requirement.

4. Are you satisfied with the quality of the food?

Add a scale of 1 to 10 to your restaurant survey to learn how people rate your food. Make sure to note that 1 is very unsatisfied and 10 is the absolute best. For most eateries, they'll want to aim for a 7 or above.

Good food is a reason for people to keep coming back and refer your restaurant to their friends.

5. How likely are you to recommend our restaurant to others?

Add another scale for this question. If people are unwilling to recommend you to their friends or family, there is room for improvement.

6. How long did you have to wait to be seated?

People will wait five to ten minutes to be seated at a good restaurant. But if your wait times are 15 minutes or longer, people will begin to leave unless you offer food and an experience worth waiting for.

7. What could we do better?

One open-ended question that you should definitely have on your list is, "What could we do better?" You want to collect all of the serious answers and try to find trends. If people keep mentioning that the food came to the table too cold or warm, find a solution to this problem.

And feel free to add a final question that asks the person to leave any additional comments that they may have.

You can use multiple types of questions in your survey. We'll cover a few of the most common options below.

restaurant survey

What Types of Questions Should You Be Asking?

The aim of a restaurant survey is to gather feedback that you can use to improve the dining experience.

To entice customers to take the survey - and complete it - you want to make it as easy and quick as possible to answer your questions.

Some of the best and most effective questions to ask are:

  • Simple yes/no
  • Open-ended
  • Scale/rating

Feel free to mix up the question types to keep the customer engaged.

The Top Apps to Run a Customer Satisfaction Survey

Creating and launching a restaurant customer survey is easier than ever, thanks to technology. While there are dozens of survey apps to choose from, some of the most popular ones include:

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey has been around since 1999, and even today, they are leaders in the customer survey space.

They offer a variety of different templates that make it easy to create surveys, including:

  • Customer satisfaction surveys
  • Transactional NPS surveys
  • Yes/No surveys

Customization options allow you to create branded surveys that can be sent via email, SMS, social media, QR codes and more.

Plus, SurveyMonkey offers survey analysis tools that help you turn feedback into actionable insights.

SurveyPlanet

If you're new to the idea of creating surveys and don't know where to start, SurveyPlanet offers over 90 templates with pre-written questions. Use them as-is, or tweak them to align with your restaurant's goals.

Those sample questions are great inspiration, and can help make the creation process move more quickly and smoothly.

Standout features of this survey platform include:

  • Custom themes and branding
  • The option to upload images
  • Responsive layouts for easy use on any device
  • AI-powered tech to automate survey creation
  • Question branching

They offer a variety of customer survey templates, including loyalty surveys, experience surveys and market research surveys.

Zonka

Zonka is a feedback platform designed with restaurants in mind. They make it easy to get feedback on:

  • The food delivery experience
  • The in-restaurant experience
  • Staff performance
  • Menu variety and taste

Features like AI analytics help you uncover opportunities to improve the customer experience.

Eat App

Eat App has built-in feedback and survey features that automate the entire process. Customize your questions, get access to actionable analytics and even have your survey data delivered straight to your inbox.

These features are part of the broader Eat App platform, which offers reservations, table management, CRM features and more.

Final Thoughts

Customer feedback is essential to creating a positive experience for diners. Surveys help you collect that data to make meaningful changes that drive customer loyalty and attract new customers.

Asking the right questions is key. Make the process simple and touch on the most important aspects of your restaurant (menu, service quality, etc.).