Here are some of the best questions for an ex-cult member survey about support services satisfaction, plus tips on how to create them. You can instantly build this survey with Specific and gather nuanced insights in seconds.
Best open-ended questions for ex-cult member support services satisfaction surveys
Open-ended questions empower ex-cult members to share personal stories and uncover experiences that fixed options can easily miss. They’re perfect for understanding the emotional aftermath and the actual impact of support services.
Can you describe your overall experience with the support services you accessed after leaving your group?
What specific challenges did you face when seeking help, and how did services address (or fail to address) these?
Which aspect of the support services stood out to you as most helpful?
Were there any areas where you felt the services were lacking? Please elaborate.
How have support services affected your emotional recovery and everyday life since exiting the group?
What could support providers have done differently to better support your needs?
How easy or difficult was it to find support services relevant to ex-cult members?
Can you share an example of a particularly positive or negative interaction with a service provider?
What advice would you give to others leaving similar groups about seeking support?
Are there additional resources or services you wish had been available to you?
This open approach matters: Research shows 93% of former group members feel anxiety and guilt, and 91% have difficulty handling emotions after leaving cultic environments—underscoring the need for thoughtful, qualitative prompts to surface these real experiences. [1]
Best single-select multiple-choice questions to quantify the experience
Single-select multiple-choice questions help quantify attitudes and surface quick feedback trends, especially when you need statistical clarity or an easy way to open a deeper conversation.
Question: How helpful did you find the support services you accessed after leaving?
Very helpful
Somewhat helpful
Not at all helpful
Question: Which type of support service did you use most after leaving your group?
Mainline religious organization
Professional therapist
Peer support group
Other ex-cult member services
Other
Question: What was your main goal when seeking help?
Emotional recovery
Finding community
Practical advice (housing, legal)
Other
When to follow up with "why?" Using a follow-up “why?” question is essential after a choice like “Not at all helpful.” It helps identify what exactly went wrong—was it lack of understanding, poor communication, or unmet expectations? This insight directly shapes actionable improvements, and it’s core to Specific’s dynamic follow-up magic.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Including an “Other” response uncovers unexpected types of support or unmet needs. Automated follow-up questions (“Can you describe the other service you used?”) reveal insights standard choices often miss—a crucial way to understand the diverse paths ex-cult members take in their recovery journey.
Should you use NPS to measure ex-cult member support satisfaction?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for businesses. It can quickly gauge how likely ex-cult members are to recommend support services to others in similar situations. For community and non-profit support, a high NPS means what you’re offering resonates and is helping people. A low score flags areas for deeper follow-up and program improvement. You can instantly set up an NPS survey tailored for ex-cult member support in Specific, and get automated insights as responses come in.
The power of follow-up questions
Automated follow-up questions are the game-changer for conversational surveys. Instead of stopping at “not helpful,” your survey can ask, “Why was the service not helpful for you?” or, “Can you share a bit more about your expectations?” This approach leads to richer, more actionable insights. We explain this in more depth on our AI follow-up questions feature page.
Ex-cult member: "The group sessions didn’t help."
AI follow-up: "Can you tell us what was missing or what made these sessions unhelpful for you?"
How many follow-ups to ask? Generally, we’ve found that 2–3 follow-up questions are just right—deep enough to clarify but concise enough to keep the conversation moving. With Specific, you can set a maximum and let respondents skip if they’ve shared enough.
This makes it a conversational survey: The result feels like a genuine back-and-forth—respondents are heard, and feedback is richer.
AI analysis, response summaries, theme extraction: Even though you’re capturing detailed stories, AI makes it easy to analyze, group, and act on what you learn with tools like AI survey response analysis.
Try generating a survey and see how follow-ups turn every response into a deeper story.
How to prompt ChatGPT (or GPTs) for better ex-cult member support survey questions
The right AI prompt makes all the difference. Start simple and layer in context for best results.
Begin with:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Ex-Cult Member survey about Support Services Satisfaction.
But don’t stop there. AI responds better when you provide more detail about yourself and your goal. For example:
I'm researching the experiences of ex-cult members to evaluate how well current support services meet their needs. The aim is to understand both emotional and practical outcomes. Please suggest 10 open-ended survey questions.
Next, ask the AI to organize the questions by category:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
From there, pick key categories you care about—like “emotional support”, “service accessibility”, or “community integration”—and prompt:
Generate 10 questions for categories emotional support and service accessibility.
This process gives you both structure and creativity when brainstorming with AI.
What is a conversational survey, and why does AI matter?
Conversational surveys are interactive, chat-like exchanges—far more engaging than traditional static forms. Instead of filling out tedious pages, ex-cult members (or any audience) simply answer questions and the AI probes for details just like a human interviewer would.
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated (Conversational) Surveys |
|---|---|
Static list of questions | Dynamic chat, real-time follow-ups |
No deeper probing | AI asks relevant follow-up based on each answer |
Prone to unclear/flat responses | Captures context, emotion, details |
Hard to analyze qualitative responses | AI analyzes and summarizes feedback automatically |
Why use AI for ex-cult member surveys? Many ex-cult members struggle with distress, anger, or emotional turmoil—83% report anxiety, 76% feel anger, and 67% suffer from depression after leaving, according to expert research. [1] AI-driven conversational surveys provide a safe, non-judgmental space to open up, while automated follow-ups ensure critical details surface for service improvement. You don’t need to script every question—and your survey adapts to what the respondent shares.
Specific offers best-in-class conversational survey UX. The whole feedback process feels like a supportive chat instead of a cold checklist—hugely important for trust and engagement. If you want to learn more about building AI-driven surveys, check out our guide on how to create an ex-cult member support services survey.
See this support services satisfaction survey example now
Ready to gather powerful, honest insights? See how a conversational survey can surface what really matters about support services for ex-cult members—while making every response easier to analyze and act on. Get started and transform the way you listen.