Best questions for ama attendee survey about agenda preferences

Here are some of the best questions to ask in an AMA attendee survey about agenda preferences, along with tips on how to create them. If you want to build your own, you can generate a conversational survey with Specific in seconds.

Best open-ended questions for AMA attendee surveys

Open-ended questions are essential when you want deep, qualitative insights rather than just quick ticks in a box. They invite attendees to share their real thoughts, unexpected ideas, and reveal the “why” behind their preferences. According to research published in the Journal of Trial and Error, open-ended questions often generate a richer diversity of responses compared to closed-ended ones, making it easier to spot patterns and hidden needs in your group. [1]

Here are 10 of the best open-ended questions to ask AMA attendees about agenda preferences:

1. What topics are you most interested in seeing covered during this AMA?

2. Are there any specific questions or challenges you'd like the speakers to address?

3. What format do you find most engaging for AMA sessions (e.g., panel, Q&A, presentations)?

4. Is there a guest speaker or expert you would love to have join a future AMA?

5. What are your biggest pain points or challenges related to this agenda?

6. How could the agenda be better structured to fit your needs?

7. Can you share a time when an AMA session exceeded your expectations? What made it stand out?

8. What’s one thing you feel is missing from our usual AMA agendas?

9. How do you prefer to submit your questions—live or ahead of time? Why?

10. Is there anything we could do to make AMA sessions more valuable or inclusive for you?

Open-ended questions like these can surface issues or ideas that you might not catch with just multiple-choice questions. In fact, a cross-industry study found that 43% of respondents added at least one open-ended comment, revealing nuanced details about their experiences and preferences. [3]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for AMA attendee surveys

Single-select multiple-choice questions are powerful when you need quick quantifiable answers or want to ease someone into a longer survey. Sometimes it’s easier for respondents to click a button than to write out a detailed response—this can get the conversation started, so you can follow up with more open-ended questions to dig deeper where it matters.

Question: Which session format do you prefer for AMAs?

• Live Q&A

• Panel discussion

• Guest speaker presentation

• Interactive workshop

• Other

Question: How much time would you ideally like each agenda item to receive?

• Less than 15 minutes

• 15–30 minutes

• 30–60 minutes

• More than 60 minutes

Question: What is your main goal when attending AMA sessions?

• Learning from experts

• Networking

• Getting questions answered

• Exploring new topics

When to follow up with "why?" It’s a good move to add a follow-up “why?” when you notice specifics that could uncover motivations or pain points. If someone selects “Other” or makes a less common choice, asking why helps you learn what your current options might be missing. For example, if a respondent chooses “Interactive workshop” as their preferred session format, follow up with “Why do you prefer workshops to other formats?” to get deeper insight. This mirrors what the Pew Research Center found: while closed-ended questions have lower nonresponse, open-ended follow-ups introduce a fuller picture, even with higher item nonresponse rates. [2]

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Add “Other” when you know you can’t list every possible answer. Follow-up questions here are especially helpful—they often uncover unexpected preferences or new agenda ideas that you hadn’t considered.

NPS-style question in AMA attendee surveys

Net Promoter Score (NPS) questions are super effective for AMA attendee surveys focused on agenda preferences. An NPS question asks, “How likely are you to recommend this AMA session (or planned agenda) to a colleague or friend?” on a scale from 0 to 10. The directness of NPS reveals overall satisfaction and helps spot your strongest promoters and detractors quickly. To make things easier, you can use this NPS survey template for AMA agenda preferences.

Combining NPS with contextual follow-up questions (“What is the main reason for your score?”) gives you the best of structured data and deep insights—great for refining your agenda over time.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions can transform a bland response into actionable gold. In fact, we've seen time and again that probing deeper uncovers the motivations and reasoning behind an answer—details that surface new ways to improve your AMA sessions. Thanks to AI, automated follow-up questions can trigger in real time, probing for clarity or elaboration just as an expert interviewer would. See how this works in our article on automatic AI follow-up questions.

Specific’s AI crafts smart follow-ups on the fly based on previous replies, keeping the tone conversational and the survey engaging. This puts respondents at ease, boosts participation, and saves hours you’d otherwise spend chasing answers by email. Here’s what can happen without follow-ups:

• Attendee: “I like panel discussions.”

• AI follow-up: “What is it about panel discussions that you find most valuable?”

Without that follow-up, you’d just be left wondering what exactly made the panel format click for this attendee.

How many follow-ups to ask? Typically, 2–3 follow-ups per question are more than enough. If you already have the main info you’re after, enable the setting to skip additional follow-ups in Specific. This keeps things efficient for both you and your respondents.

This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of a static form, your survey feels like a back-and-forth chat—engaging, approachable, and a lot more effective.

AI survey analysis, theme detection, instant summaries: Even when you collect a lot of unstructured free-text, analyzing responses with AI (see the AI survey response analysis feature) is straightforward. Quickly spot major themes and patterns without needing a data science background.

This automated follow-up system is still new to many. Try generating your own AMA attendee survey and see how different the experience feels.

How to prompt AI for great AMA attendee survey questions

If you want to let AI help you brainstorm survey questions, starting with a straight-to-the-point prompt can be a game changer. Here’s how I’d start:

Begin with this:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for AMA attendee survey about agenda preferences.

AI will always deliver better results if you give more context. For example, tell it a bit about your audience, goals, or types of events:

I’m organizing a monthly AMA for a software community. The aim is to keep sessions highly interactive and ensure topics fit attendees’ real needs. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to gather agenda preferences from our audience.

Next, if you get a list of questions, ask AI to structure them for you:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

From here, pick a category (like “session format” or “key challenges”) and ask:

Generate 10 questions for categories like “key challenges” and “speaker requests.”

Prompting the AI this way keeps your survey focused and covers the ground you care about.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey is a chat-based feedback experience that feels more like messaging a colleague than filling out a boring form. Instead of bombarding respondents with a long list of questions on one page, it serves up one question at a time, remembers previous answers, and adapts follow-ups in real time. That’s how AI survey generators work at Specific.

• Traditional/manual survey: Static web form, no follow-ups, low engagement, harder to analyze qualitative data.

• AI-generated conversational survey: Feels interactive, automatically asks personalized follow-ups, easy to analyze with built-in AI summaries and chat tools.

Why use AI for AMA attendee surveys? With a conversational survey powered by AI, you get high-quality responses, more context, and happier attendees. You’ll spend less time on survey setup and analysis, and more time acting on what you’ve learned. Need help? See our guide on how to create a survey for agenda preferences.

Specific offers best-in-class user experience for conversational surveys, ensuring that gathering and interpreting attendee feedback is smooth and engaging for both you and your respondents.

See this agenda preferences survey example now

Get inspired—see how a smart, conversational survey lets you capture actionable agenda preferences from AMA attendees and start building richer events, instantly.