When it comes to **employee survey tools**, gathering real feedback on **internal communications effectiveness** means going deeper than satisfaction scores. To truly improve, I want to know how employees experience messages across channels, what slips through, and why. Great questions for internal comms uncover nuances—the kind you miss with standard surveys. Conversational, AI-powered surveys like those from Specific's AI survey generator let me listen for clarity gaps and information silos—not just happy or neutral ratings.
Questions that uncover real communication gaps
The best internal comms surveys aren’t afraid to ask uncomfortable, open-ended questions. Here are some **question types** I never skip if I want to spotlight where my messaging actually lands—and where it doesn’t:
Recall Checks:
What company update did you miss recently?
Channel Preferences:
Which communication channel (Slack, email, intranet) do you find most reliable? Why?
Timing Feedback:
Was there a recent message you received at a time that wasn’t convenient? When would you have preferred?
Clarity Challenges:
Tell me about a message you found confusing or unclear. What would have made it easier to understand?
Content Overload:
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by internal messages? Which topics or formats contribute to this?
Only 72% of employees say they’re truly informed about what’s happening at work—a clear sign that too many messages are either missed, ignored, or misunderstood [1]. These **open-ended and probing questions** let people point out specific breakdowns, moments, or examples—things a yes/no survey can’t capture.
With automatic AI follow-up questions, surveys become more like a real conversation. If someone says, “I missed the new benefit update,” AI can immediately dig deeper: “What made you miss it—too many emails, or poor timing?” This context makes all the difference, especially when patterns start to emerge across the company.
Channel-specific questions that drive actionable insights
I’ve learned that not all channels are equal—emails get buried, intranet is ignored, Slack is noisy. To move beyond “one size fits all,” I ask **channel-specific questions** tailored to each platform:
Email:
How often do you miss important updates sent via email? What could make these stand out?
Slack/Chat:
Are Slack messages about company news easy to find among other chats? Have you missed any critical info here?
Intranet:
When’s the last time you checked the company intranet? Was it helpful or out of date?
All-hands meetings:
What information in our last all-hands wasn’t clear to you? Were there follow-up materials you needed?
Video updates:
Do you watch video messages from leadership? What makes you skip or pay attention?
Here’s a quick comparison:
Generic question | Channel-specific question |
|---|---|
How effective is our internal communication? | How effective are company updates shared on Slack versus email? |
Did you receive the last company update? | Did you see our last policy change on the intranet? If not, where do you usually get such updates? |
Channel-specific questions tell me whether the problem is content, format, timing, or just channel fatigue. Because AI-powered conversational surveys adapt to which channels employees use, I can dynamically target and personalize questions for each person.
Generate a survey about internal communications, asking about email, Slack, intranet, and all-hands meetings. Include follow-ups on missed or unclear messages for each channel.
If you want to create an agile, channel-adaptive survey, try out the AI survey generator from Specific—it helps you focus where your communications are falling short.
Turn feedback into communication strategy improvements
When responses start rolling in, AI makes sense of the mess. With real-time AI analysis, I can spot systemic issues—like recurring missed updates, consistently misunderstood policies, or “dead zones” on the intranet.
Instead of getting lost in anecdotes, I let the AI reveal:
Patterns—Are certain teams always out of the loop?
Clarity Gaps—Which topics cause the most confusion?
Timing Issues—Is message overload leading to missed memos?
You can segment insights by department, location, or role. That means I know if devs on Slack miss nothing but sales teams skip most video updates. Since 44% of employees feel less engaged when communication is infrequent or unclear [2], these diagnostics are critical.
Teams can even chat directly with the AI about breakdowns to get quick answers or strategy tweaks:
What updates are most commonly missed in our sales department?
Highlight recurring confusion about benefits policy by region.
Which teams find intranet updates least helpful, and why?
It’s not just about identifying problems—AI-powered analysis points directly to solutions, so communication isn’t just more frequent, but more effective (it’s proven—companies with effective internal communication are 3.5 times more likely to outperform financially [3]).
Launch your internal communications survey
Ready to go deeper? The magic happens when you combine **thoughtful, probing questions** with conversational follow-ups that employees actually want to answer. With Specific, crafting your own custom employee comms survey is just a click away—create your own survey and uncover insights others miss.