Citizen satisfaction survey template

Public service centres — municipal offices, licensing and registration centres, permit and civil-status counters, utility and social-service offices — are judged by citizens on a few practical things: how long it took, how they were treated, whether they understood what was required, and whether they had to come back. This template measures exactly those, in plain language suitable for every age and education level.

It is designed for the in-person visit. For digital services such as portals and apps, use the companion approach in our e-government satisfaction survey page.

Full version (QR code, email, SMS link or web) — 11 questions

1. Overall, how satisfied are you with the service you received today?
   Answer type: 1–5 smileys (Very dissatisfied → Very satisfied), required
2. Which service did you come for?
   Answer type: Single choice from your service catalogue (e.g. Licences and permits · Registration · Certificates · Payments · Enquiries · Other)
   Skip this question if each service counter has its own kiosk or QR code.
3. How long did you wait before being served?
   Answer type: Single choice: Under 10 min · 10–20 min · 20–40 min · Over 40 min
4. How courteous was the employee who served you?
   Answer type: 1–5 stars
5. How knowledgeable was the employee about your request?
   Answer type: 1–5 stars
6. Were the required documents and steps clear before you came?
   Answer type: Single choice: Yes, completely · Partly · No
   Unclear requirements are the main cause of repeat visits.
7. Was your request completed today?
   Answer type: Single choice: Yes · No, I need to come back · No, it is still being processed
8. How many times have you visited about this same request?
   Answer type: Single choice: This is the first time · 2 times · 3 or more times
9. Overall, how easy was it to get this service?
   Answer type: 1–5 scale (Very difficult → Very easy)
   An effort question; see the customer effort score template for the 7-point version.
10. What one change would improve this service for you?
    Answer type: Open text or voice note, optional
11. Would you like us to contact you about your feedback?
    Answer type: Yes / No + phone or email on Yes

State at the top that the survey is voluntary and anonymous unless the citizen chooses to leave contact details, and say how the feedback will be used. Trust in the survey is part of trust in the service.

At the hall exit, citizens want to leave. The kiosk version asks the three questions that matter most for daily management:

1. How satisfied are you with today's service?
   Answer type: 1–5 smileys, required
2. What could be improved? (shown for 1–3)
   Answer type: Multiple choice: Waiting time · Employee courtesy · Unclear requirements · Request not completed · Facilities · Other
3. Was your request completed today?
   Answer type: Yes · No

• Inclusive by design. Offer every language spoken by a significant share of your visitors, large high-contrast buttons, and a kiosk option for citizens without smartphones. Voice notes help people who find typing difficult.
• Anonymous by default. Citizens may fear consequences for criticising a public body. Never require identification; make contact details clearly optional.
• Plain language. Avoid internal service names and abbreviations. “Driving licence renewal” is better than an internal code.
• Show that feedback is used. A short “You said, we did” notice in the hall raises participation more than any reminder.
• Measure first-visit resolution. For citizens, having to come back is often the single biggest frustration; questions 7 and 8 make it visible.

For a wider view of how public bodies measure service quality, read citizen experience measurement.

A service centre visit has a few natural feedback points:

• Leaving the service hall — floor-standing kiosk at the exit, short version. Highest reach — every visitor walks past it.
• At each service counter — counter tablet or QR code, short version. Lets you compare counters and services directly.
• In the waiting area — QR code on posters and ticket slips, full version. Citizens waiting for their number can complete all eleven questions.
• After a request is completed — SMS with a survey link, full version. Where the citizen gave a mobile number for status updates.
• Phone or written complaints — entered by staff as external feedback. So complaints made outside the survey are counted too.

Report three headline figures for each centre: satisfaction (share of 4–5 on question 1), first-visit completion (share of “Yes” on question 7) and average waiting band. Example: 2,400 responses in a month at one centre; 88% satisfied, 74% completed on the first visit — and most incomplete requests are for one service with unclear document requirements.

• By service: rank services from easiest to hardest. The hardest high-volume service is the priority.
• By counter or employee: use for coaching and recognition; publish team results, not individual ones.
• By hour and weekday: match staffing to the waiting bands.
• By centre: compare centres with similar service mixes. A ministry or municipality can rank all its centres on one dashboard.
• Repeat visits (question 8): link the number of visits to the clarity question (6) to quantify the cost of unclear information.

Public bodies are increasingly expected to respond to feedback, not just collect it:

1. Scores of 1–2, or “No, I need to come back”, trigger an alert to the centre manager.
2. Feedback with contact details becomes a ticket with an SLA for first response and resolution, escalated automatically if the deadline is missed.
3. The case owner contacts the citizen, completes or explains the next step and records the root cause.
4. Monthly, the most frequent root causes are reviewed — for example, a missing document checklist — and fixed at the source.

For complaint handling in depth, see citizen complaint management.

In Qmeter, this template runs in service halls on floor-standing kiosks and counter tablets in kiosk mode (working offline when the network drops), QR codes in waiting areas, and SMS campaigns after requests close. Services and centres are set up as dimensions in the dashboard, surveys run in more than 100 languages, low scores become tickets with SLA tracking and escalation, and an on-premise deployment is available for public bodies that must host data themselves. See government or start with the 14-day free trial.