How do you measure event success? Well, attendee feedback is the best way to gauge what went right and wrong during an event. Getting feedback from attendees allows adjustments to be made for future events and provides a guideline for what attendees expect.
The best way to get feedback is through crafting an event feedback survey. That’s why it’s crucial to learn what questions to ask at a conference. If you don’t know what to ask, then you’ll likely collect information that won’t be relevant or helpful.
Holding a meeting for feedback survey questions can help identify how to measure event success. The questions will also be more geared towards what the staff is looking for. If the team doesn’t know what to look for, then using event feedback examples can be helpful. Either way, we’ll give you a breakdown of everything you’ll need to know to create an excellent attendee survey.
How to Structure an Event Survey
The survey structure will either sway attendees to fill it out or ignore it. Collecting feedback is essential, so crafting a survey that is short and straight to the point is highly recommended. That way, a company will get helpful feedback while planning for future events.
Make it Short & Simple
Surveys should only be ten questions and shouldn’t be too long. An excellent method to limit the length of surveys is to have a staff meeting beforehand and talk about what type of feedback your team would be looking for. Choosing specific questions can help narrow down the length of the survey.
Aside from that, talking about each question to include can create a survey that provides helpful feedback. If a survey has random questions without much thought, the input won’t be constructive. So, choosing what type of feedback a company wants and then designing a survey is recommended.
Start Quick Then Expand
A survey should follow a specific format where it’s quick and straightforward at the top and more complex at the bottom. Viewers don’t want to spend too much time answering questions. A long and tedious-looking survey is more likely to cause someone to exit out of the survey before even writing any answers.
So, structure a survey that makes it easy to fill out. Make sure to put short, yes-or-no questions at the top and longer essay-style questions at the bottom. That way, survey takers will be more likely to finish answering instead of exiting before even filling it out.
Use Multiple Types of Questions
There are three types of multiple-type questions: yes or no, rating, multiple-choice, and open-ended questions. Changing up what kind of questions there are on a survey can help get specific information and keep the viewer engaged.
Pre-Event and Webinar Attendee Survey
A pre-event survey can help a company better understand what attendees may want at an event. Understanding what attendees want will help event planners personalize attendees’ experiences. But, what are some pre-event survey questions?
Pre-Virtual Event Survey Questions
- Why did you choose to attend this session?
- What is the ideal length of a session according to you?
- Have you attended a virtual event before?
- What timezone will you be attending from?
- What speakers would you like to see at the event?
Pre-Event Survey Examples
- Which social media platform do you use the most?
- Which part of the world are you attending the event from?
- Were you able to easily register for the event?
- How long have you been working?
These are the most notable pre-event questions to ask, which will provide helpful feedback. However, event managers should also consider customizing the questions if they are looking to get specific types of information from attendees. As long as the event managers use a pre-event survey template, the questions can be tailored to the particular event.
Event Survey Email Template
” [insert company logo here] [Event Name] Satisfaction Survey
Thank you for attending [event name]! We would appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes to help provide feedback for the event. All feedback is used to help improve future events!
- How did you hear about the event? _______.
- Is this your first time attending one of our events? Yes or No
- What part of the event did you like the most?
- What part of the event did you like the least?
- What would you change about the event?
- On a scale of 1-10, please rate your experience, with one being extremely unsatisfied and ten being extremely satisfied.
Location 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Refreshments 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ticket Pricing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Ease of Registration 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Additional Feedback:
*All survey responses are confidential, and any information provided will not be shared with any other existing parties. If you’d like to be contacted about your survey responses, please enter your contact info below:”
Best Tips for Event Survey Design
From the above-listed example, you can see that the survey questions are straight to the point and provide satisfaction levels from attendees. However, you can also customize each question to find out information about the event. For example, if you want to get feedback on speakers, food, or convenience, then the questions in the survey can be tailored to that.
Survey design methodology suggests that there are seven steps of questionnaire design:
- Decide on what you’re looking for
- Refine the questions
- Create response format
- Correctly order questions
- Confirm the template
- Test the survey
So, when creating an event survey, be sure to implement seven steps and limit the event to 10 questions or less. This way, attendees will be more likely to provide feedback about the event instead of clicking away. Additionally, event staff can host a pre- or post-event meeting and discuss survey writing tips.
Types of Event Survey Questions
If you’re at a loss on what to ask your attendees, there are common questions that can provide helpful feedback. However, we highly recommend that you have a pre- or post-staff meeting to discuss with your team about the type of feedback they’d find useful. In doing so, an event manager can draft a well-written post-survey for attendees.
Post-survey example questions should include the following:
- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your satisfaction with the event? (1 being unsatisfied and ten being satisfied)
- What about the event did you enjoy the most?
- What did you dislike about the event?
- Would you come back to attend another one of our events?
- How likely are you to share this event with others?
- Is there anything we can do to make your next experience better?
- Why did you choose to attend our event?
- What was the most exciting part about the event?
- What did you take away from the event?
- Did we provide enough networking opportunities?
If there are other types of information a company is looking for, they can tailor the questions to suit their expected feedback better. Once staff has a survey drafted, they can send the survey out either by email or mail. However, email surveys are the most efficient method to get event feedback.