Best questions for a post-event survey

What makes a great event?

Almost all answers to this question will be different depending on who you ask. As an event organiser it may be difficult to pin down exactly what qualities and features make for a great event. A great event organiser will know their audience, their industry, and be good with logistics. Most importantly, however, they listen to feedback carefully.

One of the most trusted ways to improve an event experience is to carry out a post-event survey and gain real and fresh insights into how your audience felt about the event. This article will take you through some useful questions you can ask your guests after your event has concluded.

Part 1: General Satisfaction

These questions are more generic and tend to be quantitative rather than qualitative. They are useful for painting a fairly simple and concise picture of the overall experience. Numeric slider questions can be answered by giving the participant a scale of 1-10 to give a rating for each question.

How satisfied were you with the event overall?
How likely are you to recommend this event to a friend or colleague?
How likely are you to attend another one of our events?
How satisfied were you with the following? The date and time of the event, the location of the event, the speakers at the event, the facilities at the venue, the catering of the event, the accessibility of the venue.

Answer box questions: These questions cannot be answered with a numeric scale and will require some kind of box for users to offer their answers.

What was our favourite part of the event?
What was your least favourite part of the event?

Part 2: Questions relating to logistics

These questions are a useful way to find out how well organised your event was, and how your users perceived the management of the venue and general content on offer. Yes and no questions require only a yes or a no, you may consider offering a not sure option also.

Were you able to see all the talks you wanted to see?
Did you have an opportunity to ask all the questions you wanted?
Did you feel there was sufficient content to make the event worthwhile?
To what extend do you feel the venue was suitable for the event you attended?
How easy was it to travel to the venue for the event?
How would you rate the quality of the following? Onsite arrival and registration process, communications leading up to the event, the event website, the conference or event app (if you used one), the length of the event, the variety of content on offer.

Part 3: Content

To many guests, the quality of content is among the most important aspects of any event or conference. If you can’t keep your guests engaged and entertained throughout, they are much less likely to attend the next event. Here’s some questions to ask and rate or comment.

How relevant was the content to your personal interests?
How impressed were you with the quality and variety of information given?
How knowledgeable did you feel the presenters were?
Who was your favourite speaker on the day, and why?
Are there any topics which weren’t covered that you felt should have been?

Part 4: Accessibility and facilities

A successful event or conference is one that offers a positive experience for everyone, this means being accessible for all guests, and offering all required facilities. Accessibility issues can make or break an event, here’s what to ask.

If you have any kind of disability, was the venue able to accommodate you?
Were the personal facilities, such as toilets or changing areas, suitable for your requirements?
Was there sufficient seating for you throughout the event?
If parking was advertised for the event, were the parking facilities suitable?
Were the transport links to and from the venue suitable?
Were accessible toilets available and clearly signposted for guests?
Were temperatures within the venue comfortable during the event?

Part 5: Catering

Your guests will be hungry and thirsty throughout the day. Great food and drink can help make an event even more memorable and successful. Here are the questions to ask afterwards.

How satisfied were you with the selection of drinks available?
How satisfied were you with the quality of food available?
How happy were you with the quality of drinks?
Were you satisfied with the dining area(s) available for consumption of food and drink?
Were you asked to provide any dietary requirements prior to the event?
If applicable, were your dietary requirements at the event met?

Part 6: Event staff

Quality and helpfulness of staff makes an enormous difference for any event. The wrong staff can turn a potential success into a horror story. Here’s some questions to ask to make sure your staffing is spot on.

How helpful were the staff overall?
How welcome did the event staff make you feel?
How knowledgeable were the staff about the event?

Part 7: Technology

Technology is becoming more and more integral for events and conferences, including high-tech audio-visual features, mobile app integration, interactivity and more. When technology is used effectively, it turns a good event into a great, memorable experience that your guests will want to repeat.

On a scale of 1-10, how impressed were you with the overall technology used at the event?
On a scale of 1-10, how impressed were you with the audio-visual technology used at the event?
Were there any examples of technology used at the event that you found particularly impressive? If yes, please tell us what it was.

General tips for a great post-event survey

When you are planning your survey, make sure you consider the following in order to maximize the value of it and gain as many useful responses as possible:

Keep it short and concise: Few people enjoy filling out lengthy forms at the best of times. To improve the number of respondents, pick your questions carefully. Try and narrow it down to 10-15 relevant questions if you can.

Minimize effort: Don’t ask people to write full sentence answers. Try and stick to numeric scale answers, multiple choice, or simple yes/no responses where you can.

Know your audience: Know who is completing the questionnaire, capture information about their background or professional status/seniority.

Order questions logically: Try to make your questions flow in an order that is easy to understand and makes sense logically. Don’t jump from topic to topic and keep it chronological where you can. For example, you may wish to ask about travel and logistics before food and drink.

Quantitative answers are easier to measure: If you are sending out a lot of surveys, quantitative answers are easier to analyse and draw conclusions from than those which require individual attention. This is not to say qualitative data isn’t useful too.

Send it promptly after the event, while it’s fresh! If you want to maximize your responses, make sure to have your survey prepared and ready before the event. You will then be able to send it out right away, while your guests are still thinking about their experience.

Offer an incentive: If your budget permits it, you may wish to run a prize draw to incentivize responses. This can be anything, from a voucher to a tablet. This is almost guaranteed to improve the volume of responses you get, but do be careful, as the prospect of winning a big prize may influence the way your guests respond.

Summary

The questions suggested in this guide only scratch the surface of what you might wish to ask, but we hope this can provide some inspiration for your own post-event survey questions. Remember, the trick is to know your audience, and have a clear understanding of exactly what you wish to learn, prove or disprove. Are there any key questions we missed that we should include? Get in touch with us today and let us know your own ideas.