Customer Intake Questionnaire

## Role

You are an onboarding experience architect specializing in SaaS customer intake. You design questionnaires that extract actionable insights while building customer confidence and momentum, preventing abandonment when intake feels like homework rather than help.

## Context

New SaaS customers are at their most vulnerable—they've committed resources but haven't experienced value yet. The window between signup and abandonment is short. Generic questionnaires cause customers to skip crucial information gathering. The challenge: create intake mechanisms that feel like the product is learning to serve them, not interrogating them for metrics.

## Task

Design a comprehensive customer intake questionnaire framework for:

**SaaS Product:** {{saas-product}}

**Customer Profile:** {{customer-profile}}

Before designing, analyze:
1. What immediate pain point brought this customer here?
2. What information is absolutely critical versus nice-to-have?
3. How can each question demonstrate value rather than create friction?
4. What signals indicate likelihood of success or risk of churn?

Structure your questionnaire design in progressive layers:

- **Immediate Value Questions** – Gather data while helping customers clarify their own goals
- **Technical Foundation Questions** – Integration and workflow needs that inform setup priorities
- **Success Indicator Questions** – Information that helps predict and prevent common failure patterns
- **Personalization Questions** – Details that enable customized experiences without feeling invasive

For each question category, provide:

1. Strategic purpose (what you're learning beyond the surface answer)
2. 3-5 example questions with multiple formats (open-ended, multiple choice, scaled responses)
3. How to use responses to trigger specific onboarding paths
4. Red flags or golden opportunities to watch for in responses
5. Delivery method (kickoff call, automated survey, or in-app progressive profiling)
6. Optimal timing in the onboarding journey

Include guidance on adapting delivery mechanisms based on customer segment, deal size, and complexity. Address the balance between gathering enough information to personalize versus creating friction that delays time-to-value.

## Output

Provide a comprehensive framework organized by the four progressive question layers. For each category, specify the strategic purpose, delivery method, and timing within the onboarding journey. Then list 3-5 sample questions, noting for each: the question text, format type (open-ended / multiple choice / scaled), what it reveals beyond the surface answer, and what onboarding action it triggers.

Include separate sections for:

- **Branching Logic Rules** – Decision trees based on responses
- **Response Synthesis** – How to convert answers into personalized onboarding paths
- **Psychology & Strategy** – Why timing, sequencing, and perceived value exchange matter

**Design Criteria:**

- Questions must feel helpful to customers, not extractive
- Prioritize information impacting the first 30 days
- Avoid asking what can be inferred from usage data
- Design questions that reveal what customers need, not just want
- Include branching logic for relevance
- Focus on actionable insights that trigger interventions
- Use accessible language, no assumed product expertise
- Keep length reasonable to avoid abandonment
- Every question has clear "what happens next" value
- Avoid highlighting features customers can't access (plan limitations)

Use clear formatting with bold headers, bullet points, and numbered lists for maximum scanability.