Lead Qualification Questions to Ask in a Survey, With Examples

What a qualifying survey is for

A qualifying survey sorts the people who answered into three groups: worth calling this week, worth staying in touch with, and never shopping. A salesperson usually learns this on a first call. A short survey at a talk, a booth or a webinar asks everyone at once, before anyone picks up the phone.

Part 1 of this series covered the setup: where the QR code goes, how to collect contact details, and how to keep them apart from honest feedback. This post is about the questions.

Use multiple choice for anything you want to sort

You cannot sort a pile of open answers like "sort of looking, maybe next year". A multiple choice question puts every answer in a bucket you chose in advance, so the results arrive as counts.

Save free text for what only the person can supply, such as an email address. How to write good multiple choice poll questions covers the craft.

Write options that fit everyone, exactly once

In rifts.to a respondent picks exactly one option, so each list needs two properties.

• No overlap. "1 to 10 people" and "10 to 50 people" put a team of ten in both. Write "1 to 9" and "10 to 49".
• No gaps. If the only choices are "this quarter" and "this year", the person with no plans picks one anyway, and your timeline now contains an invented buyer.

So every qualifying question needs an honest way out: "just looking", "no plans yet", "here for the talk". A browser who picks "just looking" has saved your team a call, and everyone else's answers are more believable because they passed on it.

A light version of BANT

BANT is an old sales checklist: budget, authority, need, timeline. Use it as a guide, gently.

• Need: "What brings you here today?" The problem you solve, a related problem, curiosity.
• Timeline: "When are you looking to make a change?" This quarter, this year, no plans yet.
• Authority: "Who decides on tools like this?" I do, I recommend to someone who does, not my area.
• Budget: ask it sideways.

A direct "What is your budget?" tends to backfire in a room. Plenty of attendees do not know the number, few will share it with a vendor they met ten minutes ago, and some pick the lowest option to avoid a sales call. Ask something that tracks budget instead: team size, or what they use today. Someone replacing a paid tool already spends money on the problem.

Use the 1 to 10 rating for urgency or fit

The rating question is a fixed 1 to 10 scale with no labels on the points, so put the meaning in the question: "How urgent is this for you? (1 = someday, 10 = this month)". It is one tap on a phone, and the results show the full spread plus the average and median. Use one rating, not three, or the survey starts to feel like a feedback form.

Ask what should happen next, then stop

If you ask only one question, make it "What should we do next?" with options such as "Call me", "Email me more information" and "Nothing for now". The other questions tell you how likely someone is to buy. This one tells you what they agreed to, and it outranks everything else: a person who rated urgency 10 and picked "Nothing for now" does not get a call.

Then stop at five or six questions in total, which is plenty for someone standing in an aisle. If an answer would not change who you call first, cut the question.

Three example sets

Illustrations to adapt to what you sell.

A software company after a product talk

1. What do you use for this today? A spreadsheet, another tool, something we built, nothing yet.
2. How many people would use it? 1 to 9, 10 to 49, 50 or more, just looking.
3. How urgent is this? (1 = someday, 10 = this month) Rating.
4. What should we do next? Book a demo, email me a trial link, nothing for now.
5. Work email (only if you asked for a demo or trial link). Free text.

An agency or consultancy after a workshop

1. Which best describes your project? Starting something new, fixing something that exists, no project right now.
2. Who would sign off on outside help? I would, my manager, procurement, not sure.
3. When would you want to start? Within a month, within six months, just gathering ideas.
4. What should we do next? Set up a call, send me case studies, nothing for now.
5. Email or phone (only if you asked for a call or case studies). Free text.

An event sponsor at a booth

1. What brought you to our booth? A problem you solve, comparing vendors, the giveaway, just browsing.
2. Are you evaluating anything in this area this year? Yes, actively; maybe later; no.
3. What should we do next? Have someone call me, email me a product sheet, nothing for now.
4. Name and email (only if you want a call or the product sheet). Free text.
5. Phone and best time to call (only if you want a call). Free text.

"The giveaway" is there on purpose. People who came for the free pen will say so if you let them, which keeps them off the call list.

Label the contact questions

On the free plan every question is required, so a required phone number turns away everyone who only wanted the product sheet. With Pro, answer rules let a question be optional, or required only when an earlier multiple choice answer matches, so the phone number is required only for "Have someone call me". Rules never hide a question: everyone sees every question, so the label carries the logic, as in "Phone (only if you want a call)". Conditional and optional questions explains the rules, and part 1 describes a two-survey setup for the free plan.

Sort the answers into three piles

Agree on the rules before the event.

• Call first: asked for a call or demo, with a timeline of this quarter or urgency of 8 or higher.
• Nurture: asked for a call with a later timeline, or asked for information by email. They get what they asked for.
• No follow-up: picked "nothing for now" or "just looking". Leave them off every list.

The results dashboard shows each question on its own card: counts per option, the spread for a rating, and every free-text answer as typed. That tells you the shape of the room, such as how many people want a call, but it does not line up one person's answers across questions. On the free plan, keep what you need about each person in one free-text answer, such as "Phone and best time to call".

To sort person by person, use the CSV export in Pro: one row per response, one column per question, headed Q1: ..., Q2: .... In a spreadsheet, sort by the next-step column and then by urgency, and the call-first pile is the top of the sheet. The export puts an apostrophe in front of any answer starting with +, so a phone number is not read as a formula. A spreadsheet hides it; strip it before a CRM import.

Common questions

Can a respondent pick more than one option?

No. Each multiple choice question takes exactly one answer. If two things can both be true, ask two questions.

Can I add qualifying questions to my feedback survey?

Keep them apart. A response carries no name or account, so feedback is anonymous until someone types an email address into an answer. See what anonymity actually means.

How long does a free survey take answers?

Seven days from when you create it. Answers already collected stay readable from your admin link after that. See the 7-day free window.

Getting people to answer

Good questions collect nothing if nobody opens the survey. Ask for it out loud.

• Give a reason and a size. "Five quick questions, and we'll send the slides to anyone who asks" gets more phones out than a bare code.
• Pick the moment. The end of a talk, during questions. At a booth, right after someone asks what you do. In a webinar, the last five minutes, before people leave.
• Put the link where people are. The QR code goes on your last slide and on a sign at eye level at the booth. In a webinar, paste the link into the chat too. Sharing a survey covers both.
• Send it again the next morning. Put the same link in the follow-up email for anyone who missed it, while the survey is still open.