New Client Questionnaire Template
For clients who already said yes — gathers the backstory, the success picture, and the working preferences that turn a signed contract into a smooth project.
Welcome aboard — it is official! These questions help us start smart. Nothing here is a test: quick, honest answers beat polished ones.
The deal is signed; the danger has changed. Before the contract, the risk was losing the client — now it is starting the work on assumptions. A new client questionnaire is the bridge between yes and kickoff: it collects the history, the politics, and the private worries that shape a project long before any deliverable does.
Backstory before scope. The questionnaire opens with how the project came about, because projects carry luggage: a predecessor who overpromised, a board mandate, a competitor scare. Knowing the origin story tells you which words will land in your kickoff deck and which will reopen old wounds. The six-month success question converts the contract's legal scope into the client's emotional scope — the version they will actually measure you against. And the sign-off question quietly establishes decision hygiene: you learn on day zero whether your daily contact holds the pen or merely holds the meetings.
The worry question earns its place. "Anything you're quietly worried about?" reads as soft; it is the sharpest field on the form. Clients volunteer risks here that they would never raise on a kickoff call with five people listening — a skeptical CFO, a deadline nobody believes, a previous vendor's half-disclosed mess. Answered honestly even a third of the time, this question saves you one fire per quarter.
What stays out. Billing addresses, purchase-order numbers, and legal terms — the contract already did that work, and re-asking signals disorganization. Equally absent: satisfaction scales and expectation scores. Measurement instruments belong at the end of an engagement, not the beginning of one.
Who sends it. Agencies send it the same hour the countersigned PDF arrives, while enthusiasm is at its peak and answers come fastest. Consultants lean on the check-in cadence question to set a communication contract before the first status meeting. Fractional operators onboarding several clients a quarter clone it per client and keep each link in the project folder, which keeps every engagement's answers cleanly separated.
Adapting it. Add a file upload block if you want brand assets or existing documents attached to the questionnaire itself. If clients answer over several sittings, nothing is lost — partial responses save as they type, so a questionnaire finished across two evenings arrives whole. Turn on email notifications so a completed questionnaire pings your inbox the moment it lands, and export the answers as CSV to paste straight into your kickoff document. Some teams add a second page of engagement-specific questions after the page break — the two-page shape keeps the universal questions stable while the tail flexes per project. If the answers are commercially sensitive, set a password on the form in Settings and share it only with your client's team.
Frequently asked questions
My client answers in bursts — will half-typed answers survive?
Yes. Responses are saved progressively as partial submissions, so an interrupted session still reaches you, and the finished version supersedes it when they submit.
Can I keep this questionnaire private to one client?
Set a password in the form Settings and share it alongside the link. Only people with both can open the form.
Does my client need a Formlark account?
No — the link works for anyone. Accounts are only for form owners; respondents just answer and go.
Can answers flow into our project management tool?
Use the webhook: every completed questionnaire is pushed as JSON to any endpoint you choose, with a signature and automatic retries if your tool is briefly down.