Create your survey

Create your survey

Create your survey

Best questions for beta testers survey about onboarding experience

Adam Sabla - Image Avatar

Adam Sabla

·

Aug 23, 2025

Create your survey

Here are some of the best questions for a Beta Testers survey about onboarding experience, plus smart tips for crafting questions that drive real insights. You can build your onboarding experience survey in seconds with Specific.

The best open-ended questions for beta testers onboarding experience surveys

Open-ended questions are where you discover the real story. They let testers share what surprised, confused, or delighted them—go beyond simple ratings. Although response rates for open-enders can be lower (average nonresponse is around 18%) compared to closed questions, the depth of feedback is unmatched and often reveals things that rating scales miss—like a critical bug or unexpected barrier that testers would otherwise keep to themselves. [1][2]

Ten results-driven, open-ended questions to ask your beta testers about onboarding experience:

  1. What was your initial impression of the onboarding process?

  2. Can you describe any part of onboarding that felt confusing or unclear?

  3. Tell us about a moment in onboarding where you felt stuck. What was happening?

  4. What steps (if any) did you skip or want to skip during onboarding? Why?

  5. Were there any onboarding screens or instructions that stood out as especially helpful?

  6. If you could change one thing about the onboarding experience, what would it be?

  7. How did the onboarding help (or not help) you understand the product's core value?

  8. Was there anything you expected to see during onboarding that was missing?

  9. Tell us about any technical issues or bugs you encountered during onboarding.

  10. Is there anything else you'd like us to know about your onboarding experience?

Open-ended questions like these invite nuance, allowing beta testers to flag issues rating grids might miss. In a 2024 study, 81% of survey respondents highlighted issues via open-ended questions that weren’t even hinted at by fixed rating options—proving just how valuable free-form questions are in surfacing problems you might never think to ask about. [2]

The best single-select multiple-choice questions for onboarding experience

Single-select multiple-choice questions are great when you want quantitative data or to kick off a conversation with easy wins for respondents. They help you quickly spot patterns—such as which step causes the most friction—and make it easier for users to respond, especially when time is tight. Many survey experts recommend balancing open- and closed-ended questions, because open-enders give you depth, while multiple-choice questions keep your survey approachable and response rates high. [1]

Question: How easy was it to complete the onboarding process?

  • Very easy

  • Somewhat easy

  • Neutral

  • Somewhat difficult

  • Very difficult

Question: Which part of the onboarding process felt the most challenging?

  • Account creation or sign-in

  • Product walkthrough/tutorial

  • First task setup

  • Finding key features

  • Other

Question: How clear were the instructions provided during onboarding?

  • Extremely clear

  • Mostly clear

  • Somewhat clear

  • Not at all clear

When to follow up with "why?" Any time a respondent chooses an answer that signals confusion, dissatisfaction, or praise, a follow-up "Why did you feel this way?" uncovers deeper motivations. For example: If someone selects "Somewhat difficult," ask, "Why did you find onboarding somewhat difficult?"

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include "Other" when your answer list might not be exhaustive. Follow up with "Please describe what was challenging," which uncovers unexpected insights that rigid options would miss—sometimes leading to your most actionable findings.

NPS question for onboarding experience

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a classic for a reason. It asks beta testers how likely they are to recommend your product—giving you a benchmark for user satisfaction and onboarding success. Using NPS in your onboarding survey lets you spot trends across cohorts and catch drop-offs early. For onboarding surveys, tailor the standard NPS question to your context:

“How likely are you to recommend [Product] to a friend or colleague after completing the onboarding process?” (0-10 scale)

Using NPS, combined with targeted follow-up questions, can directly connect onboarding improvements to future advocacy or churn. Ready to try it? You can generate an NPS onboarding survey instantly.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are the heart of a conversational survey. They transform a simple set of survey questions into a meaningful dialogue, making sure you understand the “why”—not just the “what”. Research shows that without follow-ups, surveys often return shallow answers or ambiguous feedback (and you find yourself sending additional emails later, wasting time).

Specific's AI is designed to ask smart, context-aware follow-up questions in real time, like a sharp researcher would. That means we gather richer, more complete insights during the first (and only) survey interaction. Respondents don’t have to think twice; we uncover the story layer by layer.

  • Beta Tester: "The onboarding was okay, but I got confused at one point."

  • AI follow-up: "Can you tell me more about what confused you? Was it a specific step or instruction?"

Without that follow-up, we’d miss crucial feedback about which moment in onboarding caused confusion.

How many followups to ask? Two or three well-targeted follow-ups are usually enough. Specific lets you fine-tune this and even skip to the next question once you’ve heard what you need. You don’t want to overwhelm testers—but do want to capture all the important details.

This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of a checklist, you’re having a dialogue—making the experience friendlier for beta testers and much more actionable for your team.

AI-powered analysis: With Specific, all these free-text responses are a breeze to analyze. The AI survey response analysis condenses open-enders and follow-ups into key themes and takeaways, no matter how much unstructured feedback you get.

Automated follow-up questions (like those in Specific) are a game-changer—generate a survey and give the conversational approach a try to experience richer insights from your testers.

How to write prompts for AI to generate beta testers onboarding survey questions

If you're using ChatGPT or another GPT model, you can get great onboarding survey questions by asking for them directly—but your prompts matter. Try this:

For basic questions:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Beta Testers survey about Onboarding Experience.

For best results, add context—who you are, your goals, and test platform specifics:

I’m designing an onboarding experience survey for users participating as beta testers in our mobile app. Our goal is to identify which parts cause frustration or confusion, and to spot gaps that existing analytics don’t cover. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that will surface these insights.

After that, drill down:

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

Then you can dive deeper into what matters most:

Generate 10 questions for categories “First Impressions”, “Confusing Steps”, and “Unmet Expectations”.

With more context, AI survey generators (like Specific) produce more nuanced and actionable surveys, every time.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey feels like a natural back-and-forth, not a form. Beta testers are guided through questions—and thoughtful follow-ups—like in a real interview. Each answer shapes the next question, making feedback richer and the process friendlier.

This approach is fundamentally different from traditional/manual surveys. Most surveys are rigid: they present fixed questions and choices, then demand you export and comb through data in a spreadsheet. With an AI survey generator, you chat your way to a set of tailored questions (or let the AI build the survey for you), and then feedback is collected and analyzed—often in real time.

Manual Surveys

AI-Generated Conversational Surveys

Static questions—no adaptation

Adapts to answers & context

Manual, slow to build and launch

Rapid survey creation via AI

Manual analysis, slow insights

Instant AI summaries & themes

Low engagement, form fatigue

Conversational, high engagement

Why use AI for beta tester surveys? AI survey builders like Specific help you ask better questions, collect richer feedback via context-aware follow-ups, and analyze results instantly. This means you get more actionable insights—faster and with less effort. And if you ever want to edit your survey on the fly, the AI survey editor lets you rephrase, add, or remove questions using natural language.

If you want a step-by-step walkthrough, check out our guide on how to create a beta testers onboarding survey for more expert moves.

Specific delivers a best-in-class user experience for both survey creators and testers—making feedback collection seamless, engaging, and far more insightful than traditional forms.

See this onboarding experience survey example now

See how a conversational, AI-powered onboarding experience survey works—clarify onboarding friction, craft deeper follow-ups, and turn every beta tester insight into action. The easiest way to collect and understand onboarding feedback, hands down!

Create your survey

Try it out. It's fun!

Sources

  1. Pew Research Center. Why do some open-ended survey questions result in higher item nonresponse rates than others?

  2. Thematic. Why use open-ended questions in surveys?

  3. Centercode. Increase tester participation by setting the right expectations

Adam Sabla - Image Avatar

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.