Sales team survey: 16 questions that test the plan, not the reps
One question that sizes the team, twelve ratings on the plan the reps were handed, one confidence item, two open answers. About four minutes, for a quota-carrying team of five to fifty.
- 16questions
- about 4 minto answer
- 1 to 5on one line
- No patch fieldand the page says why
This one rates the plan, not the people in it
A sales team survey is worth sending for one reason: the reps are the only people who watch the plan meet a buyer. Everything else is already in the pipeline report.
Every rated item names something a rep was handed. The patch, the number, the price they may quote, the approval clock, the pay plan, the leads, the steps in the CRM, the material, and whether a complaint about any of it reaches anyone. Nothing asks a rep to score a colleague, a manager or themselves, so a 1 is a fact about the plan rather than an accusation about a person.
That is what makes the answers usable. Two reps at 60 per cent of target can be two different problems: one is coasting, one sits in a patch that produced a third of the revenue of the next one over. The coverage items separate them, because everyone answers on the same scale and the gap shows up as a split.
It is the shortest set that still covers the plan. All sixteen are already built in the create your own survey editor, ready to reword before you send.
| If the subject is | Use | Because |
|---|---|---|
| The plan the team sells against | This template | The reps rate the patch, the number, the price and the leads on one scale, and no item names a person. |
| One person against a role standard | A skills assessment template | A per-person gap read, including the manager-and-self comparison. |
| One named person, rated by several | A 360 degree feedback questionnaire | Multi-rater feedback has its own consent and reporting rules. |
| The person running the team | An upward feedback survey | Rating a named manager changes who can safely answer. |
| The plan before it is set | A strategic planning survey template | This page asks whether a plan can be worked. That one asks what it should be. |
The 16 sales team survey questions
Every item with its scale and what to do with the answer.
The team you are describing
The only thing this survey records about who is answering. No patch, no segment, no start date: on a team this size each of those is a name.
- How many people on this team carry a sales target?The denominator: how many responses to expect, and whether the open answers can be shown.
Patch and number
Three ratings on whether the target was set from something a rep can see. Quota fairness, not quota size, is what has been linked to salespeople leaving.[2]
- The accounts in my patch hold enough buyers for me to reach my number.Coverage. A split between 5s and 1s is not a motivation problem: the patch was cut unevenly, and the fix belongs to whoever cut it.
- My number for this period was set from something I can see in my own patch.Whether the number has a visible basis. In a matched study of 313 salespeople and 142 managers, quota fairness predicted turnover intentions and procedural justice did not.[2]
- I could explain to a new joiner how my account list was decided.The account list, tested by whether a rep could explain it. A rule nobody can restate is not one the team works to.
Price and pay
Three ratings on the money. Two about winning the deal, one about which deals the plan pays a rep to chase.
- I can quote a price that wins the deals I am asked to win.Price, asked about the deals you set as targets rather than about discounting. Low here beside high on leads points at positioning.
- When a deal needs a price approval, the answer arrives while the deal is still live.Approval latency, worded around the deal clock rather than a named approver. The quickest of the twelve to act on, because it is a rule rather than a habit.
- The way I am paid rewards the deals this company says it wants most.Whether the pay plan and the stated strategy point the same way. In Salesforce's panel of 4,050 sales professionals fielded in August and September 2025, 76 per cent of reps wanted more transparency in how their pay is worked out.[6]
Where the deals come from
Two ratings that turn the oldest argument in the building into a count. In a Gartner survey of 243 chief sales officers run in November and December 2024, 49 per cent said their definition of a qualified lead differs greatly from marketing's.[5]
- The leads handed to me are for organizations that could buy what we sell.Lead fit, asked as whether the organization could buy. Eight reps on one scale beats eight opinions in a meeting.
- I start each month with enough live opportunities to reach my number.Volume, kept apart from fit. Plenty of the wrong leads and a few of the right ones are different problems.
Doing the job
Four ratings on the week. In the same Salesforce panel, reps put 40 per cent of the week on selling and 60 per cent on other work.[6]
- The steps I am asked to follow in the CRM help me sell rather than only report.The CRM, judged on whether the steps help the rep rather than whether the rep completes them. Completion is already on a dashboard.
- The material I am given answers the objection I hear most from buyers.Material, tied to the objection the rep actually meets. A low score here is a content brief.
- In a normal week I spend more of my time with buyers than on internal admin.Selling time, asked as a comparison rather than as a percentage nobody can estimate.
- When I report that part of the plan is not working, it reaches whoever can change it.The feedback loop. If it scores high across the team, you already had the information.
The one outcome item
One rating, kept apart from the twelve so it can be read against them rather than averaged in.
- How confident are you of hitting your number this period?Confidence in the number. High confidence beside low coverage is a team carrying the plan on effort, which has a shelf life.
In your own words
Two optional open items about the plan. Below about ten people treat them as identified: writing style and deal detail name a rep more reliably than a dropdown.
- If you could change one thing about the plan for next quarter, what would it be?The one that gets acted on. Ask for one change rather than for feedback: one change fits on an agenda.
- Which part of the plan is working and should be left alone?So the read-out has something to protect as well as to fix. A survey that only returns complaints stops being answered.
Two edits before you send. Replace "my patch" if the team calls it a book or a territory, and name the period in question 14. If the CRM item scores low across the team, the follow-up is a process improvement questions set aimed at that workflow, not a longer version of this survey.
Reading answers from eight people
A small sample by design, and small samples are read for their splits rather than their averages.
Do not add the twelve ratings into a score. A total has no unit and hides the only pattern worth acting on, which is which items disagree. High on leads and low on price says the deals arrive and stall at the quote.
Read the spread first. Eight people who all answer 3 and eight who split evenly between 1 and 5 give the same average and describe opposite teams. On the coverage items the split is the finding: the patches were cut unevenly, which is a decision rather than a mood.
Sort the twelve into two piles first. Price, the approval clock, the material and the CRM steps can change this quarter. The patch, the number and the pay plan cannot, at least not this quarter. Say which pile each finding is in, or the read-out becomes a workshop about things nobody in the room controls.
| What you collect | What it is for | What not to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Question 1, the size of the team | How many responses to expect, and whether the open answers can be shown | Do not break any result down below it. There is nothing else here to cross-tabulate by. |
| Questions 2 to 4, patch and number | Whether the target arithmetic is visible from the floor | Do not read a low score as low ambition. Difficulty and fairness are not the same quantity.[2] |
| Questions 5 to 9, price, pay and leads | The two arguments that otherwise run on opinion | Do not take these to marketing as a complaint. Take the counts. |
| Questions 10 to 13, the working week | The hours not spent with buyers, and the material that misses the objection | Do not put them beside an activity dashboard: that is what the team reports, this is what it experiences. |
| Questions 14 to 16, confidence and the open items | One outcome item to read the twelve against, the one change to put on an agenda, and the one thing to protect | Do not forecast from the confidence item, and do not code the open ones. On a team of eight, treat them as identified: writing style names a rep more reliably than any field would. |
Sending it, and the read-out that keeps it answerable
One link, one team, one change named in front of the people who answered.
Send it against the sales calendar. The answers are cheap to act on at two moments: before the patch is carved, and before the pay plan is locked. A second read at the halfway point says whether what you set is holding.
Say what happens to it before anyone answers. Name the decision it feeds and the date. There is a well-argued position among sales teams that surveys like this let leadership avoid the floor, and the only answer to it is a read-out that arrives, names one change, and names what is not changing and why.
Confidential, not anonymous, and say so. Whoever set it up can open the responses. What this template does instead is remove the fields that identify people: no login, no patch, no segment, no start date, ratings read in aggregate.[4]
Do not send this while a reshuffle is being decided and not announced. An unexplained survey during a change reads as the start of the change, and everyone with something to lose answers safely. Announce first, ask second.
What to send with the link
Before you start This is about the plan you have been given to sell against, not about how any of you are selling. Nobody is named, scored or compared. Sixteen questions, about four minutes. Nothing asks about your patch, your segment or how long you have been here. It is confidential, not anonymous. [YOUR NAME] can open the responses, and on a team of [N] an open answer can be recognised from how it is written. Ratings are safer than the comment box. What happens next: I bring the ratings to [DATE] with no names attached, name the one thing we are changing, and name what we are not changing and why. Please answer by [DATE].
Sales team survey FAQ
What should a sales team survey ask?
The things the reps can see and the leadership team decides: whether a patch holds enough buyers, whether the number was set from something visible, whether the price wins the deals you asked for, whether approvals arrive while the deal is live, whether the leads could buy, and where the week goes. Every one names an owner outside the rep.
How many questions should a sales team survey have?
Sixteen here, against the thirty and fifty-question lists that rank for this search. Those are menus to choose from; this is the set you send. Twelve sit on one 1 to 5 line, so you get a complete set back in about four minutes rather than a strong start and a thin tail.
Is a sales team survey anonymous?
No, and a template that promises it is selling you something. Whoever set it up can open every response. What you can honestly offer is confidentiality by design: no login, no identity capture, no patch or tenure field, and aggregate reporting only. The US federal employee survey treats a group as at risk when fewer than five people share a work unit and a set of demographics, and suppresses a breakdown below four responses.[4]
How often should you run it?
Against the sales calendar. The two moments that pay are before the patch is carved and before the pay plan is locked, while the answers are still cheap to act on. A second read at the halfway point says whether the plan is holding. Run it more than that and you are measuring what the team thought of the last one.
What do you do when the answer is that the number is unrealistic?
Treat it as arithmetic, not as a complaint. Put the patch history beside the target, ask what has to be true to close the gap, and say which part you own. A harder number is not automatically an unfair one: in the matched study of 313 salespeople, quota difficulty was positively related to perceived fairness, and fairness is what moved turnover.[2]
Should this survey rate individual reps?
No. Every rated item is about the plan, so a low score is not an accusation against anybody in the room, which is the condition for an honest answer. For a per-person read, or a multi-rater read on one named person, the first section links the template that does each.
Methods and sources
What this template is based on
Sixteen questions: one that sizes the team, twelve ratings on one 1 to 5 line, one confidence item and two open answers. Three rules hold it together. Every rated item names something the reps were handed rather than something a person did, so an honest low score is not an accusation. Items that can change this quarter are kept apart from items only whoever sets the plan can change. And nothing identifying is collected.
Question licensing
Nothing here is reprinted. Sales competency frameworks are commercial products and their item banks are licensed. The Challenger terms state that "under no circumstances may Company use the Services, Materials, or Templates to create training"; Sandler's state "you shall not copy, duplicate, reproduce"; SPIN is a proprietary trademark of Huthwaite International; Gallup's own material says its twelve-item survey questions are proprietary. Korn Ferry and Miller Heiman, Objective Management Group and RAIN Group publish no reachable licence page, so their status is recorded as proprietary and unverified rather than guessed at. Each may be named and linked; none may be reproduced, reworded or matched in shape, and none is. No openly licensed sales-strategy questionnaire exists to model on, which is why this set was written from scratch.
Limits and disclosure
This template collects ratings and computes nothing: no score, no index, no benchmark. The numbers mean something beside each other and beside the same team next quarter, and nothing beside another company. It cannot be anonymous, and the page says so. Twelve of the sixteen items are self-report. Most published sales statistics were refused here: quota-attainment percentages trace to a research firm that no longer exists, the quoted cost of replacing a salesperson rests on 127 self-selected respondents, and the peer-reviewed work on territory design sits behind paywalls this build could not reach. What survived: a matched sample of 313 salespeople and 142 managers on quota fairness and turnover,[2] a field experiment across 86 stores where shortening the quota period lifted the bottom quartile by about 18 per cent while pushing the whole team toward lower-margin sales,[3] and a median tenure of 3.3 years in sales and related occupations in the United States in January 2024 against 3.9 for all wage and salary workers.[1] Two vendor panel figures are used, both with their sample and field dates where they appear.[5][6]
SuperSurvey builds the editor this template opens in.
References
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employee Tenure in 2024, Table 6: median years of tenure with current employer by occupation. Current Population Survey, January 2024. bls.gov
- DeConinck, J. and Johnson-Busbin, J. "The Influence of Quota Difficulty and Fairness on Salespersons' Turnover Intentions and Turnover." Atlantic Marketing Journal 14, no. 2 (2025), article 1. Open access. digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu
- Chung, D. J. and Narayandas, D. "Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment." Harvard Business School working paper 17-059, 2017. hbs.edu
- US Office of Personnel Management. 2023 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey Technical Report, data suppression and at-risk group rules. opm.gov
- Gartner, Inc. Press release, 21 May 2025, reporting a survey of 243 chief sales officers and senior sales leaders conducted November to December 2024. gartner.com
- Salesforce Research. State of Sales, 7th edition. Anonymous panel survey of 4,050 sales professionals in 22 countries, fielded August to September 2025. salesforce.com
Send it before the next patch is carved
Sixteen questions, about four minutes, one change named in the read-out.
Use this template