Best questions for civil servant survey about interagency collaboration effectiveness

Here are some of the best questions for a civil servant survey about interagency collaboration effectiveness, along with practical tips for designing them. If you want to build an effective survey quickly, Specific can generate it for you in seconds as a conversational AI survey.

The best open-ended questions for civil servant surveys about interagency collaboration effectiveness

Open-ended questions allow civil servants to share genuine experiences, unique perspectives, and concerns about interagency collaboration effectiveness. They're ideal for surfacing issues you might not think to ask directly or for understanding deeper motivations—and they're your best bet for discovering underlying dynamics that drive successful or challenging collaborations. But keep in mind: open-ended questions often have higher nonresponse rates (up to 18% or more)[1], so you'll want to balance these with other question types for the richest data.

1. What recent example shows successful collaboration between your agency and others?

2. What barriers most often prevent effective collaboration with other agencies?

3. Describe a time when miscommunication affected interagency work.

4. Which resources or processes would help your agency collaborate more effectively?

5. How do you personally build relationships with colleagues from other agencies?

6. What kind of support do you need from leadership to facilitate better collaboration?

7. How does your team measure the impact of working with other agencies?

8. Describe a situation where interagency goals were not aligned and how it was resolved.

9. Which technologies or tools make collaboration easier or harder?

10. What advice would you give to improve partnerships between different agencies?

For more, you can generate open-ended questions with Specific’s conversational survey builder—especially if you want to go deeper or tailor to your situation.

The best single-select multiple-choice questions for civil servant surveys about interagency collaboration effectiveness

Single-select multiple-choice questions are fantastic when you need to quantify attitudes, quickly spot patterns, or lower the mental load for respondents. Sometimes civil servants are pressed for time and appreciate being able to choose from a few options—a quick selection can open the door to follow-up questions that get to the “why.” You’ll often start the conversation here, then dig deeper as needed.

Question: How would you rate overall collaboration between your agency and others?

• Very effective

• Somewhat effective

• Neutral

• Somewhat ineffective

• Very ineffective

Question: What is the biggest obstacle to working with other agencies?

• Lack of communication

• Conflicting goals or priorities

• Bureaucratic processes

• Resource constraints

• Other

Question: How often do you collaborate with colleagues from other agencies?

• Daily

• Weekly

• Monthly

• Rarely

• Never

When to follow up with "why?" If a civil servant chooses “Somewhat ineffective” or “Very ineffective,” a simple “Why is that?” prompt immediately helps uncover root causes, getting detailed feedback efficiently. Always layer a “why” question when you want context or to turn a simple metric into an actionable insight.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Include “Other” if your categories might not capture every possible experience. The respondent can then specify a unique obstacle or situation, and with automated follow-ups, your survey can uncover totally unexpected insights that matter just as much as the known ones.

Should you use an NPS-style question in a civil servant interagency collaboration survey?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple, powerful single-question metric that quantifies how likely respondents are to recommend a process, tool, or, in this case, interagency collaboration. It’s usually posed as, “On a scale from 0–10, how likely are you to recommend working with other agencies to a colleague?” For civil servants, this works as a quick pulse-check on both overall sentiment and willingness to advocate for interagency collaboration. You can generate an NPS survey for civil servant collaboration instantly and pair it with open-ended follow-ups.

Research confirms that integrating AI-driven conversational elements (like NPS follow-ups) can boost response rates and extract richer, more actionable feedback compared to static forms[2]. It fits well as both a starter or closing question in your questionnaire flow.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are where conversational AI surveys (like Specific) shine. By automatically probing for detail based on how a respondent answers, you get context that static forms just can’t capture. AI-powered follow-ups dramatically improve the relevance and richness of answers—even compensating for the higher item nonresponse rates often seen in open-ended questions[1]. Explore more about automated followup questions and why this matters in modern surveys.

• Civil Servant: “Communication is sometimes a problem.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you tell me about a recent experience where communication was a challenge? What was the impact?”

Without that follow-up, this answer would be vague and not actionable. In fact, research shows that smart follow-ups can raise response rates and give you more detailed data, especially when follow-up is timely and focused[3].

How many follow-ups to ask? Typically, 2–3 targeted follow-ups extract enough context for analysis, while still respecting the respondent’s time. Specific lets you dial this in, and even lets the system “skip ahead” when a question is already fully answered.

This makes it a conversational survey: Each follow-up builds on the last, creating a natural exchange—so surveys feel less like forms and more like collaborative conversations.

Easy AI-powered analysis of unstructured feedback: Worried that all this qualitative feedback is hard to analyze? With Specific, you can analyze survey responses using AI, uncover themes, and chat with the data to discover root causes. Even with lots of long-answer replies, the analysis process stays manageable thanks to AI-driven summarization.

Experience this new approach for yourself—generate your survey and see how follow-ups lead to real insights.

How to prompt ChatGPT (or other AIs) to generate better survey questions

If you want creative support, prompting ChatGPT or another AI is easier with clear instructions. Try starting with:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for civil servant survey about interagency collaboration effectiveness.

Your prompts get much better when you provide context about your goals, your organization, or challenges. For example:

Our agency struggles with information sharing and project handoffs. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for civil servant survey about interagency collaboration effectiveness, prioritizing barriers, examples, and resource needs.

For structure, ask the AI to group questions for you:

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

Then, dig into the essential themes (such as "Barriers," "Best Practices," or "Technology") and request:

Generate 10 questions for the categories 'Barriers' and 'Best Practices'.

This process will surface both broad and nuanced questions for your survey. With Specific, you can do all of this in a single chat-based interface and further edit using the AI survey editor.

What makes a conversational survey different?

Conversational surveys, especially when powered by AI, feel like an expert-led chat—not a tedious form. Every question and follow-up adapts in real-time, leading to higher engagement and more complete, actionable responses. Research shows these methods yield more relevant and detailed answers—even outperforming traditional static online surveys in richness[2].

Here's a quick comparison:

Why use AI for civil servant surveys? Time, data quality, and completeness. AI-driven survey experiences keep civil servants engaged, encourage thoughtful replies, and make it much easier to act on findings. For more guidance, check out our guide on how to create a civil servant survey on interagency collaboration effectiveness, or try out an AI survey example yourself.

Specific offers best-in-class conversational survey experiences, making it simple for both survey creators and respondents to get real value from every question—without survey fatigue or wasted time.

See this interagency collaboration effectiveness survey example now

Start asking the right questions and capturing richer insights instantly—with smart, AI-powered follow-up and analysis that transforms how civil servant feedback shapes interagency collaboration. See the difference for yourself—build your own conversational survey and turn answers into action.