Best questions for conference participants survey about staff helpfulness

Here are some of the best questions for a conference participants survey about staff helpfulness, plus pointers on crafting them. If you want to build a survey like this in seconds, you can generate it with Specific now.

Best open-ended questions for a conference participants survey about staff helpfulness

Open-ended survey questions invite conference participants to speak freely, offering valuable insights into staff helpfulness that structured ratings might miss. While these questions can result in more detailed feedback, you may notice higher nonresponse rates compared to simpler closed-ended formats. Pew Research Center found that open-ended questions sometimes see nonresponse rates above 50%, versus 1–2% for closed ones, but the insights can be invaluable if you’re striving for real improvement. [1] Still, management teams in a PubMed study found open-ended survey feedback very valuable for quality improvement—over 80% said participant comments were “useful” or “very useful.” [2]

1. Can you describe an experience where our staff exceeded your expectations during the conference?

2. Were there any moments when you felt the staff could have been more helpful? Please explain.

3. In what ways did staff members make your conference experience easier or more enjoyable?

4. What challenges, if any, did you encounter when seeking help from staff?

5. How did the staff respond to unexpected issues or questions during the event?

6. What suggestions do you have for improving staff support at future conferences?

7. Were there particular staff members who stood out for their helpfulness? Tell us more.

8. How would you have liked our staff to assist you differently?

9. Is there any feedback you wish you’d shared with our staff on-site, but didn’t?

10. What aspects of staff helpfulness made the biggest difference to your overall experience?

To get the richest feedback, use a mix of open-ended and closed-ended questions. Mixed-mode surveys that pair ratings with open-ended comment fields can predict future attendee behavior up to 27% better than ratings alone. [3] You can see more about how to create this type of survey step-by-step if you’re interested.

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for conference participants survey about staff helpfulness

Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you want numbers you can easily compare or quickly spot trends. They're also less intimidating for respondents—they just pick the best fit and move on. This can help kick off a conversation, and you can always follow up with open-ended questions for more depth.

Question: How would you rate the helpfulness of our conference staff overall?

• Excellent

• Good

• Fair

• Poor

Question: During the conference, did you always feel able to find help when needed?

• Always

• Most of the time

• Sometimes

• Rarely

• Never

Question: Which staff support area do you feel needs the most improvement?

• Registration desk

• Session assistance

• Technical support

• Logistics (directions, signage)

• Other

When to follow up with "why?" If a participant selects "Fair" for helpfulness or "Sometimes" for finding help, don't stop there. Ask, “Why did you choose that answer?” These open-ended follow-ups turn quick selections into actionable stories and surface real pain points or highlights, giving you the context you’d otherwise miss—a key to effective conference feedback collection.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always consider adding “Other” when your categories may not cover every scenario. If someone’s concern isn’t listed, following up their “Other” response can uncover surprising needs or new ideas you hadn’t even considered. Automated followups based on this selection can drive those discoveries even further.

The value of NPS questions for staff helpfulness

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple, proven method to measure attendee loyalty and gauge whether your staff’s helpfulness is winning true advocates or letting opportunity slip. When you ask, “How likely are you to recommend our conference to a colleague based on staff helpfulness?” (on a scale of 0–10), you get a single, trackable score that signals your strengths—and where there’s room to lift the bar. NPS can become a north star metric for repeat improvement.

If you want to plug this question directly into your survey, you can generate a NPS survey survey for staff helpfulness here that’s tailored to conference participants.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions aren’t just a “nice to have”—they’re critical for clarity and for true, actionable learning. According to research, surveys that used follow-up designs had longer, more meaningful responses with richer themes than those that didn’t [4]. The problem with traditional surveys is that you’re often left guessing what someone really meant by a terse answer. But with Specific’s automated followup questions, the AI learns from your respondent’s wording and immediately asks the right clarifiers—just like an expert would in a real conversation.

• Conference participant: “Staff were fine, but some didn’t know where certain rooms were.”

• AI follow-up: “Could you share which rooms were hardest to find, or when this issue came up during the event?”

How many followups to ask? Balance is key. Usually, 2–3 follow-ups per topic are enough. It’s smart to stop asking once you get clear context—Specific lets you customize this so you don’t annoy or fatigue your respondents while still uncovering what matters most.

This makes it a conversational survey: The whole process becomes a natural chat rather than a rigid form. That means higher engagement and better-quality feedback—not just for respondents, but for you, too.

AI-driven response analysis: Even when you end up with loads of open-text answers and clarifications, analyzing and summarizing all that isn’t hard; AI response analysis makes it possible to spot patterns, surface top themes, and get actionable summaries in seconds. No more sifting through endless comment fields.

These AI-powered followups change the game—try generating a survey and see just how conversational it can really be.

How to prompt ChatGPT (and other AIs) to generate great conference survey questions

If you’d like to experiment with AI yourself before committing to a survey platform, drafting prompts is a great way to brainstorm. Start simple like this:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Conference Participants survey about Staff Helpfulness.

Your results get better if you add more context—explain who you are, what your conference is about, what you want to improve, or any unique problems you’ve seen. For example:

I organize large annual tech conferences and want honest feedback from attendees about how staff could support them better, especially around session changes and tech support issues. Please suggest 10 open-ended questions to capture detailed responses.

It helps to organize your questions, too. Prompt the AI to group similar questions under categories—this makes it easier to cover all your bases without being repetitive:

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

Once you see which categories matter most to you, dig deeper:

Generate 10 questions for categories Session Logistics and Technical Support.

This process helps you tailor your survey so you won’t forget key angles or staff touchpoints.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey isn’t just a list of questions—it’s an interactive, chat-like experience, where each reply can trigger new, relevant followups. Compared to a traditional form, this approach is both more engaging for respondents and more informative for you.

Why use AI for conference participant surveys? AI survey generators like Specific let you launch conversational surveys instantly—saving time, reducing guesswork, and boosting quality. Research shows that conversational surveys with AI chatbots foster better-quality responses—more informative, specific, and relevant—than typical online forms [5]. For staff helpfulness, conversational surveys also let you identify unexpected problems as they happen, and respond to attendee needs in a more agile way.

If you want a detailed walkthrough, our guide to creating surveys for conference staff feedback lays out each step.

We designed Specific to make conversational, AI-driven surveys a reality for everyone—feedback is never a chore, either for you or your participants, thanks to its chat-like interactions, smart follow-ups, and built-in AI analysis. The experience simply feels more human.

See this staff helpfulness survey example now

Try an AI-generated survey and collect better feedback in minutes. Get richer insights, enjoy automated followups, and unlock rapid analysis from your next conference participant survey with Specific—see how effortless great feedback can be.