Skip to main content

Returning Customer

Want to know what brings your customers back for a second purchase (or maybe more)? Find out using this template!

Updated this week

Understanding why customers return is just as important as understanding why they purchased in the first place. If your Attribution Survey helps uncover how they first discovered your brand, this Returning Customer survey reveals why they stick around. It’s your opportunity to dig into what converts a one-time buyer into a loyal fan.


Survey Template Setup

Create a Survey and Choose the Audience

Start by heading to your Surveys tab and creating a New Survey. From the Audience dropdown, choose Returning Customers. This pre-selects users who have placed multiple orders and are eligible for targeted follow-ups.

💡 The Returning Customer audience is available on our Analyst plan and up. See our pricing here.



Main Questions (Template Defaults)

  1. What made you come back to make a purchase today?

    (Checkbox)

    Helps capture recurring motivators like product quality, service, email/sms marketing initiatives, sales, or value — great for future messaging and product focus.

  2. Is there anything that you wish we sold?

    (Radio)

    This question opens the door for product development ideas. If you’re looking for broader feedback, you can switch this to a multi-select and include a list of potential products or flavors your team is considering. From there, you can use our Klaviyo (or other email services) to notify your customers once the product(s) that they indicated they are interested in become available!

  3. Thanks for letting us know! What else would you like to see from us?

    (Short Text)

    A follow-up for additional qualitative insight, especially useful if someone selects “Other” or wants to elaborate.

  4. Did anything almost stop you from purchasing?

    (Radio: Yes / No)

    Understand friction points in the returning customer experience — great for identifying UX or pricing issues.

  5. Other than price, what was it?

    (Short Text)

    A conditional follow-up to #4, giving more context around concerns outside of pricing.

  6. How likely are you to recommend [Your Brand] to a friend, family member, or colleague?

    (NPS — Scale of 1–10)

    Captures brand loyalty, but keep in mind that results will skew positively since this audience only includes returning customers.

  7. Thanks for your response! What was the main reason behind your rating?

    (Short Text)

    Follow-up to NPS, providing deeper insight into what’s driving promoter or detractor behavior. Please note that you NPS score in a returning customer survey may skew positively as you're only asking people who enjoyed your products enough to purchase them again.

  8. Refer a Friend

    (HTML Block)

    Drive organic growth with a call-to-action for referrals or loyalty incentives. You can add anything with a landing page here though. You may even want to build out logic to show a link to refer a friend, or to leave a review to customers who score highly on the NPS scale vs. automating messages from your support team for those who score a lower.


Additional Questions

Q1: Who did you purchase this for today?

We like to start with a radio button question because it will automatically advance the customer to the second question whenever they select one option. The purpose of this question is to determine the purchasing behavior of your customer. For customers who purchase for themselves, you will be able to create a profile of interests and target those interests specifically. For someone who purchases for others, you'll be able to target their gift-giving proclivity during gift-giving seasons (🎄❤️🎂). This question is good-to-go out of the box, so nothing further is needed for setup!

Q2: Which of the following influenced your purchase today?

You and your brand work hard to market your products to your target audiences, so this question takes the temperature of which particular points are most important to your customers. You'll have to fill these in yourself (no two brands are the same, of course!), but it's a simple edit in the builder.

Q3: Why did you choose to purchase today?

Whereas the previous question addresses the specific marketing features that are attractive to your customers, this question gets into the psychology of the customer. By giving them the opportunity for free response, you'll get some that give the same reasons as Q2, some who won't answer, and some who will give you a full paragraph, which is extremely valuable. Mining this data helps to get a fuller picture of the state of mind of your customers when they're pushing the 'Buy Now' button.
The previous 3 questions are a great starting point that provide helpful and powerful insights, no matter your brand or industry. But now is the time to customize for yourself, depending on what's most important for you. Here are a couple of different areas that might prove interesting for you and your brand. Note: Be careful of question limits (Starter = 3), as your survey won't save if you exceed these limits.

All of these questions are templated questions, so you'll be able to search for them in our question library. Just search for the survey title to add the question to your survey.


Suggestions for Customization

💡 Pro Tip: Use our Survey Edits & Changes guide if you plan to modify or add questions.

Product Development

If you’re looking to use returning customers for product insight, consider adding these:

  • Future Product Development- If you could see any new product that you wanted from us, what would it be?

  • Product ImprovementWhat one change would you make to improve a product you’ve already purchased?

  • Pre-Purchase Product ImprovementIf you could make one change to a product before buying it, what would it be and why?

Use Case & Emotional Insight

  • What types of activities are you using our products for?

  • How do our products make you feel?

These are great for messaging, segmentation, and landing page copy.

Segmentation (especially if you’re syncing with Klaviyo)

Maybe you're looking to create more segments within your marketing flows. We can help with that, too! Especially if you're pushing data straight into Klaviyo. These questions are templated, but you'll need to change the response options to suit your specific brand and the specific segmentation you're looking to do!

  • Product Category Interest - Which of the following product categories are interesting to you?

    • Shoe Care - Shoe Care, Boot Care, Sneaker Care, Leather Care, Suede Care

    • Apparel Brand - Men's vs. Women's clothing

    • Apparel Brand - Clothing Type, i.e., Tops, Bottoms, Swimwear, Dresses, Suits, Outerwear, Undergarments, Accessories

    • Beauty Store - Beauty Product Type, i.e,. Face, Eyes, Lips, Skin

  • Activity Category - What types of activities are you using our products for?

    • Clothing - Leisure, Business, Activity, Workout

    • Alternative Soda - Special Treat, Daily Drinker, As A Mixer


Demographic Questions

If you're looking to improve your knowledge of your ideal customer, these questions can be super helpful. They're also really useful in conjunction with our Audiences to get a little different look at your data!

  • Age

    • Age Radio (GA ranges)

    • Age Radio (5s)

    • Age Radio (10s)

    • Age Slider

  • Gender

  • Household Income

  • Race/Ethnicity

  • Employment Status

  • Education

  • Relationship Status

Did this answer your question?