A post-purchase survey for online stores that catches the unhappy customer
A post-purchase survey earns its place on the bad answers. A good rating confirms what you hoped. A poor one is a return, a refund or a bad review that has not happened yet, and the survey can find out what went wrong while the customer is still willing to say.
What should online stores ask first?
| Ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| How was your order: great, okay, or not good? | A three-way choice is quick to answer and makes the unhappy customer easy to find. |
| Did it arrive when you expected, and in good condition? | Delivery problems and product problems have different owners in the business. |
| Is the product what you expected from the listing? | A gap between the photos or description and the product is a listing fix, not a product fix. |
| How likely are you to buy from us again? | For a store that lives on repeat orders, this is the answer that matters. |
| For an unhappy answer: what went wrong? | The open answer is where the fix is. |
| Would you like someone from our team to get in touch about it? | An offer to fix it turns a complaint into a recovery. |
If an answer would not change what you do next, leave the question out. Each extra question is one more reason for someone to stop before they finish.
Which answers come back too vague to use, and what do you ask next?
The answers that cause a phone call are rarely missing. They are present and too loose to act on. A narrower follow-up, asked straight away while the person is still there, usually settles them. Offering likely answers shows the person the level of detail you need.
| What comes back | The follow-up that settles it |
|---|---|
| “It was fine.” | Was there anything that nearly made it not fine: the delivery, the packaging, or the product itself? |
| “Shipping was slow.” | How long did it take, and did the tracking tell you what was happening? |
| “Not what I expected.” | What was different: the size, the color, the quality, or something else? |
Follow up once per gap, then move on. If an answer is still unclear after one follow-up, flag it for whoever picks the request up rather than pressing.
When is a call or a visit still the right move?
A customer whose order arrived broken, or never arrived, needs a person, not another question. That is what the last question is for: an unhappy answer leads to an offer of contact, and the support team starts from what went wrong instead of an angry email.
How do you set this up from the Post-purchase satisfaction survey template?
Acquainto has a Post-purchase satisfaction survey template to start from. After you sign up, open Browse templates, pick Post-purchase satisfaction survey, and it lands in the editor as a draft you can change before anything is published.
This template is built for the job. It asks for a rating of the purchase, how likely the customer is to buy again, what could be improved (shipping speed, product quality, customer service, website experience or pricing) and anything else, and branches on a poor rating: an unhappy customer is asked what went wrong and whether they would like support to follow up. Add the delivery and listing questions above, and send it once the order has had time to arrive.
Acquainto runs it as a short written conversation instead of a form. It:
- asks a follow-up when an answer is incomplete, and asks for clarification when one is vague;
- uses a structured choice where precision matters and open conversation where detail matters;
- shows the person every answer before it is sent, so they correct their own mistakes;
- hands back one clean value per question, delivered to your own systems by webhook.
The person answering needs no account, and nothing has to be scheduled. Start free trial, see how it works, or compare plans.