Best questions for civil servant survey about emergency preparedness and response

Here are some of the best questions for a civil servant survey about emergency preparedness and response, plus tips to get the most out of your survey design. If you need to build one from scratch, Specific can help you generate it in seconds, tailored to your exact needs.

Best open-ended questions for civil servant survey about emergency preparedness and response

Open-ended questions are a powerful way to tap into civil servants’ real experiences, letting them answer in their own words. This approach uncovers nuances and issues you don’t anticipate—things closed-ended options just miss. However, it’s good to remember that open-ended questions can have higher nonresponse rates. Pew Research found that the nonresponse rate for open-ended survey items can be as high as 18% or even 50% in some cases, compared to only 1–2% for closed-questions [1]. Even so, the payoff is big: in a recent cross-industry study, 81% of respondents highlighted overlooked issues thanks to open-ended prompts [2].

1. Can you describe a recent emergency situation you responded to, and how prepared you felt?

2. What resources do you feel are lacking in your department's current emergency preparedness plan?

3. Describe any barriers you face when participating in emergency preparedness training.

4. How could communication during emergencies be improved across agencies?

5. What procedures or protocols do you find most challenging to follow during emergencies, and why?

6. Share an example of when current preparedness plans didn’t fully address the risks on the ground.

7. What’s one change you’d make to your agency’s emergency response process?

8. How does your team typically collaborate during multi-agency emergency responses?

9. What types of emergencies do you feel least prepared for, and what support would help?

10. Is there anything else you’d like to share about strengthening emergency preparedness in your role?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for civil servant survey about emergency preparedness and response

Single-select multiple-choice questions work best if you need to quantify responses, benchmark readiness, or spark targeted follow-ups. They’re easier and faster for civil servants to answer—especially for routine status or self-assessment checks. This align with research showing that single-answer questions are less cognitively demanding and typically get higher response rates [4]. If you want to dig deeper, you can always add a follow-up question.

Question: How confident are you in your agency’s current emergency preparedness plan?

• Very confident

• Somewhat confident

• Not confident

• Unsure

Question: Which type of emergency training do you participate in the most?

• Natural disaster response

• Terrorism/active shooter response

• Pandemic/public health response

• Other

Question: What is the biggest barrier to improving emergency communications in your department?

• Lack of resources

• Technical challenges

• Staff training gaps

• Coordination with other agencies

When to followup with "why?" Once a civil servant picks an option, asking "Why did you choose that?" can reveal the root cause or offer context that standard categories miss. This is invaluable for acting on insights—for example, after someone selects "Staff training gaps," a followup like "Can you describe a time when training was insufficient during a response?" can surface critical improvement areas.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Include "Other" to capture experiences or concerns you might not have thought of. A civil servant who chooses "Other" and explains their reasoning in a follow-up might highlight a systemic issue or unique challenge, giving you an unexpected window into frontline realities.

NPS question: Should you use it for civil servant surveys?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question—"How likely are you to recommend your agency's emergency preparedness approach to others?"—can reveal overall confidence in preparedness strategies. For civil servant audiences, NPS tracks how advocacy-ready they are for current procedures, exposing opportunities for practical improvement. When paired with a follow-up ("What is the main reason for your score?"), it gives a clear, quantitative pulse and qualitative context. Try generating a ready-made NPS survey for civil servants here.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-ups transform conversations by encouraging civil servants to clarify, elaborate, or illustrate their chosen answers. Unlike traditional static surveys, conversational surveys—like those from Specific—use AI to ask truly relevant follow-ups based on each unique response, in real time. This creates a sense of dialogue, making it feel more like a genuine conversation than ticking boxes. Research shows that conversational surveys produce dramatically richer data: 53% of conversational survey responses had more than 100 words, compared to only 5% in traditional open-ended surveys [3].

Specific’s AI can ask smart follow-ups using recent responses as context, adapting tone and scope just like a human expert would. This avoids endless back-and-forth by email after surveys close and saves immense internal effort. Want more details about this feature? Here's an in-depth look at Specific's follow-ups.

• Civil servant: "Preparedness plans could be better."

• AI follow-up: "Could you share a specific example of how the preparedness plan fell short in a real emergency?"

How many followups to ask? Usually, 2–3 follow-up questions deliver plenty of depth. Make sure you allow people to skip to the next question once you’ve collected key feedback—Specific lets you configure this for a smooth experience.

This makes it a conversational survey: the dialogue mirrors a real-world interview, drawing out insight and nuance.

AI analysis, response summaries, synthesis, and filtering: Don’t worry about analyzing all that unstructured feedback—AI makes it simple. See our guide on analyzing civil servant survey responses using AI.

Automated follow-ups are a game changer—give the survey builder a try and experience the smarter, more interactive way to collect responses.

How to craft an effective prompt for ChatGPT (or any AI) to generate great civil servant survey questions

For survey design with ChatGPT or other GPT-based tools, prompting is everything. Start simple:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for civil servant survey about emergency preparedness and response.

If you want sharper results, offer more context about your audience, your goals, or insights you specifically seek:

Our audience includes frontline and managerial civil servants across agencies, focused on all-hazards disaster response and public health. Our goal is to improve inter-agency coordination and evaluate training gaps. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for emergency preparedness and response that also surface hidden frustrations.

Once you have a batch of questions, ask ChatGPT to help sort them:

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

This step highlights the range of topics and gaps you might have missed. Pick the important categories, then drill down:

Generate 10 questions for "inter-agency coordination," "barriers to communication," and "training effectiveness."

The more detail you include about your specific needs, the better the AI will perform—Specific’s AI survey builder is especially good at this in your workflow, as you can revise interactively with help from the AI survey editor.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey is an interactive, chat-like way to collect feedback from civil servants about emergency preparedness and response. It mimics a real conversation, guiding each participant through questions and asking follow-ups as needed, much like you would in an in-person interview.

This flow breaks away from rigid forms; it adapts to responses, clarifies unclear answers, and dives deeper where it matters. Traditional manual surveys lack this dynamic flexibility.

Why use AI for civil servant surveys? AI survey builders like Specific provide civil servants with a smooth, approachable experience. Respondents answer at their own pace, the survey adapts to their answers, and teams receive deeper insights—all in a fraction of the time. Check out our article on how to create a civil servant survey on emergency preparedness and response for practical steps and examples.

AI survey example flows and conversational survey design maximize both data quality and participant engagement. With Specific, the process is not just fast, it’s best-in-class for both survey creators and respondents, making it the go-to tool for conversational surveys.

See this emergency preparedness and response survey example now

Experience best-in-class conversational surveys—see the kinds of questions, dynamic follow-ups, and AI-powered insights you can collect from civil servants on emergency preparedness and response. Try the smartest way to surface what truly matters, instantly actionable for your team.