Best questions for event attendee survey about networking opportunities

Here are some of the best questions for an event attendee survey about networking opportunities, plus tips on crafting a great survey. You can build a tailored survey in seconds with Specific’s AI-powered platform.

Best open-ended questions for event attendee survey about networking opportunities

Open-ended questions allow event attendees to share their experiences and perspectives in detail, providing nuanced insights you can’t get from simple yes/no queries. They're essential when you want to understand motivations, discover unmet needs, or capture feedback that you haven’t anticipated in advance. Especially when networking is the primary reason for attending—like it is for 74% of participants at corporate events [3]—it’s key to listen closely to attendees in their own words.

1. What did you find most valuable about the networking opportunities at this event?

2. Can you describe a meaningful connection you made during the event?

3. What networking formats or activities worked best for you here?

4. Were there any challenges you faced while trying to connect with others?

5. How did this event’s networking elements compare to similar events you’ve attended?

6. What suggestions do you have for improving future networking sessions?

7. How easy was it to approach other attendees and initiate conversations?

8. Were there enough opportunities to meet people with shared interests?

9. Tell us about a moment where networking led to an unexpected benefit or insight.

10. If something made networking difficult, what would have improved the experience for you?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for event attendee survey about networking opportunities

Single-select multiple-choice questions make it easy to quantify responses and spot patterns. They’re great when you need comparable, structured data—or want to reduce respondent effort and keep the feedback process moving. Sometimes, picking from a few concise options encourages more attendees to share an opinion, and you can always dig deeper using follow-up questions.

Question: What was your primary goal for networking at this event?

• Find potential business partners

• Reconnect with existing contacts

• Discover career opportunities

• Learn from industry experts

• Other

Question: How satisfied were you with the number of networking activities available?

• Very satisfied

• Satisfied

• Neutral

• Dissatisfied

• Very dissatisfied

Question: Which networking format was most effective for you?

• Structured speed networking

• Topic-based roundtables

• Casual social mixers

• Pre-scheduled 1:1 meetings

• Other

When to follow up with "why"? If someone selects “Neutral” about satisfaction or “Other” as a goal, that’s your cue: ask, “Why did you choose that?” This often uncovers the reasoning behind their choice, revealing deeper or unexpected insights that would otherwise get lost in the numbers.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always offer "Other" when your options might not cover every scenario. If respondents select it, an automated follow-up question—like “Can you specify?”—helps you identify new needs or perspectives you may have missed.

Using NPS for networking opportunities feedback

NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a widely trusted metric for gauging overall attendee satisfaction and long-term loyalty. For event networking, it’s especially valuable, letting you ask: “How likely are you to recommend this event’s networking opportunities to a friend or colleague?” Since 82% of event professionals see networking as the top draw [2], understanding promoters and detractors is crucial. With NPS in your event attendee survey, you don’t just get a score—you open up opportunities to follow up for more context, learning exactly what made someone a fan (or not).

You can instantly create an NPS survey for event attendee networking feedback in Specific—fully customizable and ready to deploy.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions turn surveys into conversations—they’re the secret sauce for deeper, clearer insights. Specific’s AI-powered follow-up questions are unique: the survey adapts in real time, probing for details based on each attendee’s answer. This means you get to the heart of ambiguous feedback quickly, without endless email threads.

• Event attendee: “I didn’t have enough time to network.”

• AI follow-up: “Was it due to the event schedule, or something else that made networking difficult?”

Without that follow-up, you might miss whether to adjust the agenda, add more breaks, or improve communication about networking times.

How many follow-ups to ask? Usually, two to three follow-up questions are enough to clarify meaning and gather context. Specific even lets you set conditions to skip or stop once you’ve gathered the necessary info—helping respondents stay engaged instead of overwhelmed.

This makes it a conversational survey—an experience that feels like chatting with a helpful interviewer, not filling out a cold form.

AI response analysis, themes, summarization: Even when you collect paragraphs of open-ended feedback, modern platforms let you analyze responses using AI—see how it works in our AI survey response analysis guide. Specific automatically distills key themes, so the value of rich, unstructured text isn't lost in a sea of data.

These follow-up questions are a whole new way to gather insights—generate a survey and experience it for yourself.

Prompting ChatGPT (or other GPTs) to generate survey questions for event networking feedback

If you prefer to create questions with ChatGPT, here’s how to get better results. Start simple, then add detail and iterate:

Give a straightforward ask:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for event attendee survey about networking opportunities.

But, AI performs far better with extra context about your audience, goals, and the type of feedback you want. Try a richer prompt:

Imagine I organize tech industry conferences and want to know how attendees rate networking opportunities. Suggest 10 open-ended survey questions that help me improve my future events. Focus on finding unmet needs or opportunities.

Once you have your list, use another prompt to organize and refine:

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

Pick the categories you care about most, and dig deep:

Generate 10 questions about networking formats and attendee comfort with making new connections.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey feels like a guided interview—one where the respondent is drawn into a genuine exchange. Instead of a static list of questions, the AI reacts in real time, following up for clarity, details, and stories. This approach increases engagement and, as shown by research, leads to richer responses. With 84% of attendees saying networking is crucial [1], it’s vital that your survey approach genuinely listens.

Why use AI for event attendee surveys? With AI, you don’t just save time and mental effort—you also ensure every attendee’s feedback is fully explored. That’s where Specific shines: you describe the event and what you want to learn, and the AI survey generator creates a complete, smart survey rapidly—so you can focus on connections, not logistics. (Learn more in our guide to creating event networking surveys.)

Specific offers best-in-class conversational survey experiences, making feedback easy, engaging, and actionable for event creators and respondents alike. Whether you’re sharing a stand-alone AI survey or embedding one for in-product feedback, you always get the right insights—fast.

See this networking opportunities survey example now

Experience how you can gather high-quality feedback with a conversational, AI-powered survey that uncovers real attendee needs—create your own survey and make your next event’s networking unforgettable.