Here are some of the best questions for a live demo attendee survey about expectations, plus practical tips for crafting questions that capture the most useful feedback. If you want to quickly build such a survey, you can generate one with Specific in seconds.
Best open-ended questions for live demo attendee survey about expectations
Open-ended questions encourage detailed, candid responses and let us tap into what attendees truly think—ideal when uncovering unknown needs or motivations. These are best used when we want context, stories, or language straight from the participant’s mind. Here are 10 strong examples to engage live demo attendees and surface their expectations:
What prompted you to sign up for this live demo?
Can you describe what you hope to learn or achieve by attending?
Are there specific problems you're facing that you hope this demo will address?
What made you interested in our product or solution?
How do you see this demo fitting into your current workflow or job responsibilities?
What would make this demo a "success" for you?
Have you attended similar demos before? What did you like or dislike?
Is there a feature or topic you want us to cover in depth?
What concerns (if any) do you have about our product before seeing the demo?
How did you hear about this live demo, and did anything about our invite spark your interest?
Using open-ended questions like these gives us rich, actionable insights. In fact, we've seen that AI-powered surveys, which allow for dynamic probing around open-ended responses, can increase completion rates to 70–90%—a dramatic jump compared to the 12–20% typically seen with traditional event surveys. [1][2]
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for live demo attendee survey about expectations
Single-select multiple-choice questions work best when we want structured, easily quantifiable data or to provide respondents with an easy entry-point—especially helpful if someone might hesitate on a broad, open-ended prompt. They’re also great for quickly segmenting your audience and setting up follow-up questions on specific topics.
Question: What is your main goal for attending this live demo?
Learn about new features
See a real-world use case
Compare with competitors
Ask specific questions
Other
Question: How familiar are you with our product before attending this demo?
Very familiar
Somewhat familiar
Not familiar at all
Question: Which best describes your role in your organization?
Decision maker
Influencer
End user
Evaluator/researcher
Other
When to followup with "why?" Whenever a respondent chooses an answer—especially to questions like "main goal" or "concerns"—we should follow up with "why?" to surface the reasoning and context behind their choices. This extra step can expose root motivations or objections, making our insights richer and more actionable. For instance: after someone selects "See a real-world use case," a tailored "why?" can reveal whether they're hoping to solve a current pain point or validate a future purchase.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always add "Other" when there’s a chance your provided options might miss something unique. By following up on "Other" selections, we can uncover unexpected needs or language, which sometimes point to gaps in our offering—or our understanding of the audience.
NPS question: capturing recommendation intent from live demo attendees
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a standardized way to measure the likelihood someone will recommend your event, product, or service. Including an NPS-type question in a live demo attendee survey helps us quickly gauge attendee sentiment and identify enthusiasts or detractors before, during, or after the event. This is especially relevant when we’re benchmarking demo quality or iterating our customer journey.
A classic NPS question looks like:
"How likely are you to recommend this live demo to a colleague or friend?" (0–10 scale)
Diving deeper with follow-up questions for high and low scores can provide critical context into what’s working—and what’s not. You can auto-generate a tailored NPS survey for demo attendees to streamline this process.
The power of follow-up questions
The best surveys don’t just ask for surface-level feedback—they dig in. Follow-up questions are essential for exploring ambiguous or incomplete answers without putting a time burden on you or the respondent. Automated AI follow-ups take this to the next level, asking for clarification or detail only when relevant, which yields deeper and more useful insights.
Live demo attendee: "I’m here to learn."
AI follow-up: "Is there a specific challenge you’re hoping to solve, or a use case you want to explore in the demo?"
Without smart follow-ups, we end up with vague or generic replies that make it hard to act on the feedback. Automated, context-aware probing saves us the hassle of chasing people for details later and actually boosts engagement—AI-driven surveys have demonstrated significantly higher completion rates than their manual counterparts. [2]
How many followups to ask? Usually, asking 2–3 follow-ups is the sweet spot: just enough to clarify intentions, but not so many that we fatigue the respondent. With Specific, you can even configure settings so that the survey moves on to the next question once you’ve collected the actionable info you need.
This makes it a conversational survey: By tailoring follow-ups in real time, the survey transforms from a rigid question list into a friendly, natural conversation—respondents stay engaged, and we gather far better data.
Easy AI analysis: Even though follow-ups generate lots of unstructured text, analyzing everything is straightforward with AI tools built for survey response analysis. Analyzing responses with Specific is as easy as chatting with an expert assistant about your data.
Automated and conversational follow-ups are a game changer—if you haven’t seen one in action, try generating your own survey and experience just how much richer (and easier) feedback-gathering can be.
How to compose a prompt for ChatGPT to create great survey questions
When using ChatGPT (or any advanced AI) to come up with survey questions, the magic is in the prompt. Here’s a solid starting prompt for brainstorming our live demo attendee expectations survey:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Live Demo Attendee survey about Expectations.
The more specific context you add—like the product being demoed, the audience’s familiarity, or challenges you want to learn about—the better the results. For example:
We're hosting a live software demo for product managers and engineers. Our main goal is to see what questions or concerns potential customers have before making a purchase decision. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to discover their expectations and priorities.
Once you’ve generated a question set, you can improve structure by prompting:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
After reviewing the suggested categories (e.g., "Product Features," "Use Cases," "Pricing Concerns"), you can then drill down by asking:
Generate 10 questions for categories Product Features and Use Cases.
This approach turns generic AI generation into a custom-fit question list tailored for your audience and goal.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels like a real-time, back-and-forth chat—not a static form. Respondents answer questions, and the AI reacts instantly, clarifying jargon, asking for detail, and adapting tone. This format removes friction and makes participation easier, especially on mobile (which is where many demo attendees engage).
AI survey generation, in platforms like Specific, is fundamentally different from manual survey setups. The AI handles:
Question creation, using domain best practices
Designing natural follow-up logic, not just one-size-fits-all acknowledgment
Auto-analyzing results, summarizing key insights, and even chatting about findings
Manual Survey | AI Survey Example |
|---|---|
Write questions by hand, one by one | Describe your intent; AI drafts the full survey |
No automatic follow-ups; limited probing | AI asks tailored follow-ups based on context |
Slow to analyze, labor-intensive | AI provides summaries, trends, and themes instantly |
Lower response rates, higher dropout | Conversational approach increases completion (70–90% vs. 12–20%) [1][2] |
Why use AI for live demo attendee surveys? It saves you hours, uncovers honest and deep feedback, and lets you iterate fast. You get more meaningful data in less time, and the automated, adaptive experience respects the participant’s attention—delivering response rates and quality that beat traditional surveys by a mile.
For a complete walkthrough on building such a survey, check our step-by-step guide to creating a live demo attendee survey about expectations.
Specific delivers a best-in-class user experience for conversational surveys, combining all these AI advantages with a simple, intuitive interface—making both survey creators and respondents actually enjoy the process.
See this expectations survey example now
Get immediate, meaningful feedback from your demo attendees—start your own conversational survey today and gather actionable expectations in seconds with Specific’s AI-powered approach.