ISO 9001 clause 9.1.2 customer satisfaction survey template
A clause 9.1.2 survey has one job: find out whether customers think you met their needs and expectations, and do it the same way every time, so the results can be compared and acted on. The template below does that in six questions, which most customers finish in under two minutes.
ISO 9001 does not require a survey. It requires you to monitor how customers perceive what you delivered, by a method you have decided. A survey is simply the most common method, because it leaves dated records behind.
The template
| # | Question | Scale | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Overall, how satisfied are you with [the order / the service] we delivered?” | CSAT, 1–5 | The one number you trend. It is the most direct measure of how the customer perceived what you delivered. |
| 2 | “Did what we delivered meet the requirements you agreed with us?” | Single choice: Yes / Partly / No | The “needs and expectations” half of the clause, in the customer’s own terms rather than inferred from a score. |
| 3 | “How satisfied are you with…” [the quality of what we delivered], [delivery on time], [our communication] | CSAT, 1–5, asked as two or three short questions | Tells you where to act when question 1 drops. Pick the few that matter most to your customers. |
| 4 | “What went wrong?” | Open text, shown only when question 1 is at or below the level you choose | The reason, in their words. This is what you act on, and what an auditor asks about. |
| 5 | “How easy was it to do business with us?” | CES, 1–7 (optional) | Catches friction — ordering, invoicing, getting an answer — that a satisfied customer still notices. |
| 6 | “Is there anything we should do differently?” | Open text, optional | Gives every customer, happy or not, one place to say something you did not think to ask. |
Words in square brackets are yours to replace. If you know who the customer is before you send the survey, do not ask for their name or order number: attach it to the link instead, so the response arrives already identified and the survey stays short.
Why the template is built this way
It asks about something that just happened
“How satisfied are you with us?” asked once a year gets a vague answer about a vague memory. “How satisfied are you with the order we delivered on Tuesday?” gets a specific answer the customer can still stand behind, and a specific answer is something you can act on.
One score to trend, a few to explain it
Question 1 is the number that goes in your management review. Questions 3 and 5 exist to explain why it moved. Resist averaging them all into one index: when the index drops, you then have to unpick it to find out what happened.
The open question only appears when it is needed
A satisfied customer is not asked to explain themselves, so they finish in seconds. An unhappy one is asked what went wrong while they still remember. That answer is the start of your clause 10.2 record, so it is worth more than any score on the form.
It stays the same
Keep the wording and the scales fixed once you start. Changing “satisfied” to “happy”, or a 1–5 scale to 1–10, breaks the comparison with every earlier period, and consistency of method is one of the first things an auditor looks at.
Adapting question 3 to your business
Question 3 is where the template becomes yours. Ask about the two or three things your customers would complain about first if they went wrong. Some starting points:
| If you are in | Ask about |
|---|---|
| Manufacturing and supply | Conformity to specification, delivery on time and in full, accuracy of certificates and documents |
| Professional and technical services | Understanding of the brief, competence of the people sent, keeping you informed, the outcome |
| Testing and inspection | Accuracy of the report, turnaround time, clarity of the findings |
| Facilities, maintenance and field service | Response time, first-time fix, tidiness and conduct on site |
Running a school or college to ISO 21001? The same structure works with learners and parents; the schools page covers the touchpoints.
Mistakes that weaken the evidence
- Leading questions. “How excellent was our service?” invites a flattering answer, and an auditor will notice the wording.
- Two questions in one. “How satisfied are you with our quality and delivery?” cannot be answered honestly when one was good and the other was not.
- Choosing who gets asked. Sending the survey only to customers you expect to be happy produces a good score and no evidence. Decide the rule for who is asked, and apply it to everyone.
- Asking once a year. An annual survey tells you about an unhappy customer months after anything could have been done, and it usually gets a thin response.
- Collecting and not reading. A pile of responses nobody reviewed is worse than a small survey that clearly led to action.
The full list of what an auditor checks, and the questions they tend to ask, is in the clause 9.1.2 audit checklist. Who gets asked, when and how often belongs in your written method; there is an example in how to write your 9.1.2 procedure.
Running this template in Customer Feedback Simplified
Every question above can be built in the questionnaire builder in a few minutes: star or emoji ratings for CSAT, a single-choice question for question 2, a 7-point effort scale for CES and text boxes for the rest. Question 4 is a follow-up that appears only when question 1 is at or below the score you set.
- A private link per customer. Send each named customer their own single-use link, so the response arrives identified and cannot be answered twice.
- The same questions at every site. Each location gets its own links and its own score, so you can compare branches on identical questions.
- A record of what was done. Against any response, record who followed it up and what happened. It cannot be closed without a note, and it exports beside the score.
There is no ready-made ISO questionnaire in the product. The general “How did we do?” template, which already has a CSAT question and a free-text question, is a reasonable starting point, or build these six from scratch.
Questions about the template
Does ISO 9001 require a customer satisfaction survey?
No. Clause 9.1.2 requires you to monitor customers’ perception of whether their needs and expectations were met, and to decide how you obtain and review that information. The standard’s own note lists other ways too, such as feedback on delivered products and services, meetings with customers, market-share analysis, compliments, warranty claims and dealer reports.
Most companies still choose a survey, because it produces dated records that are easy to show.
How many questions should a 9.1.2 survey have?
As few as will tell you what you need to know. Four to eight is typical; this template has six, and two of them only some customers see. Every extra question costs you responses.
How often should we send it?
Ideally after each delivery, project or service visit, so feedback arrives continuously. If you have only a handful of large accounts, a survey to each key contact every quarter can work instead. Whichever you choose, write it into your method and stick to it.
Can we use the template our consultant gave us instead?
Yes. The standard does not prescribe questions. What matters is that the method is defined, applied consistently and acted on. If your current template does that, keep it.
Related guides
- ISO 9001 clause 9.1.2 customer satisfaction evidence (2015 and 2026)
Where the product fits in your QMS, and what it does not do.
- Clause 9.1.2 audit checklist
What an auditor looks for, the questions they ask, and where findings come from.
- How to write your 9.1.2 procedure
A method statement you can adapt: who is asked, how, how often, and what happens next.
- NPS and CSAT for ISO 9001
Whether an auditor will accept either score, and which suits a certified company.
Clause numbers on this page are the same in ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 9001:2026, except in clause 10: what was 10.3 (continual improvement) in 2015 is 10.1 in 2026, and the 2015 edition’s 10.1 (general) is merged into it. Nonconformity and corrective action is 10.2 in both. ISO 9001:2015 certificates are expected to remain valid until 30 September 2029 (subject to confirmation by the accreditation bodies). From around 31 March 2028, new certifications are issued to ISO 9001:2026 only. Confirm dates with your certification body.
Clause details are based on published summaries of ISO 9001:2026; verify against the standard before relying on them. Requirements are paraphrased on this page, not reproduced, and your certification body’s reading is the one that counts. Last reviewed 2026-09-30.
Evidence that collects itself
Customer Feedback Simplified runs your satisfaction questions continuously, per location, and keeps every response with its date. When a response matches a rule you set, a browser notification arrives with the customer’s words attached; you record what was done about it, and the export puts that record beside the score.
No card required.