This article will guide you on how to create a B2B buyer survey about the decision making process. With Specific, you can build highly effective surveys in seconds — just generate your survey instantly and move from idea to insights.
Steps to create a survey for B2B buyers about the decision making process
If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific. Making a high-quality, conversational B2B buyer survey has never been easier — AI takes care of the heavy lifting for you. Here’s all it takes:
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
And honestly, that's all you need. If you don't want to read further, know that AI handles survey creation with expert-level know-how, and it’s even smart enough to ask your respondents follow-up questions so you get much deeper insights, not just surface-level answers. If you want to try building one from scratch, you can always head to the AI survey generator.
Why these surveys matter: Don’t miss out on B2B buyer insights
Getting honest perspectives from B2B buyers about their decision making process is business-critical. If you’re not running these surveys, you’re missing out on clarity about buyer needs, moments of hesitation, and what triggers decisions in your market.
80% of B2B purchase decisions involve multiple stakeholders, making the buying journey much more complex and collaborative than in B2C. Gathering insights from actual buyers helps teams refine messaging, product fit, and sales playbooks — all based on real evidence, not gut feeling. [1]
68% of B2B buyers prefer to research purchases online before talking to a sales team, so you need their authentic feedback to fine-tune content, outreach timing, and marketing assets. [1]
And with 77% of buyers saying they won’t speak to a salesperson until they’re ready, you have to know exactly how and when to position yourself in their journey. [1]
The importance of B2B buyer recognition surveys lies in uncovering hidden objections, decoding what information buyers actually want, and benchmarking how your process stacks up against their expectations. The benefits of B2B buyer feedback include more effective campaigns, less wasted budget, and a much smoother path from introduction to purchase. Don’t let your business operate in the dark — give buyers a voice early, and often.
What makes a good survey on the decision making process?
First rule: keep it clear and bias-free. A great decision making process survey uses questions that are easy to understand and free of leading language, encouraging B2B buyers to respond honestly in their own words.
We always focus on using a conversational tone in every question — it feels less like an interrogation, more like a dialogue, which helps boost response rates and quality.
Make sure the questions flow logically. Start broad (“What goals led you to look for this solution?”), then go specific (“Who else gets involved before a decision is made?”).
The best measure: you get lots of responses (quantity), and those responses have real detail (quality). You want both.
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Yes/no questions only | Open-ended follow-ups capture context |
Complicated language | Conversational, simple wording |
Leading or biased choices | Neutral alternatives, easy to select |
No follow-up (surface answers) | Follow-up questions to clarify “why” |
Bottom line: a good survey about B2B buyer decision making makes it easy for buyers to tell their story, and for you to act on what they share.
Question types and best practices for B2B buyer surveys on the decision making process
Choosing the right question types is everything. For these surveys, we recommend mixing formats, and always tying each question to a learning goal.
Open-ended questions are fantastic for exploring motivations and pain points in a buyer's own words. Use these early (and mid-survey) to uncover unscripted insights:
What was the biggest challenge your team faced before looking for a new solution?
Can you walk us through the steps your team typically takes when making a purchase decision?
Open-ended questions let buyers elaborate, uncovering detail you can’t get from a checkbox. For more inspiration and tips on crafting high-quality questions, check out our guide to the best questions for B2B buyer surveys about the decision making process.
Single-select multiple-choice questions are quick to answer and make analysis easy. Use them to categorize buyer behaviors or decision stages:
Which role had the final say in your last major purchase decision?
CEO
VP/Director
Procurement team
Other (please specify)
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question is a great way to benchmark buyer satisfaction with your sales process, and track improvement over time. If you want to instantly generate a B2B buyer NPS survey about the decision making process, use this quick NPS survey builder.
How likely are you to recommend our buying experience to other decision makers?
Followup questions to uncover "the why" are where real insights happen. Use followups when a buyer’s first answer could mean multiple things, or when you want richer context:
Why did you choose that answer?
Can you tell me more about what slowed your team down?
Followups work best after open-ended or ambiguous answers, turning surface responses into actionable insights. Want to explore more ways to create great followups or advanced question types? Study our article about best questions for B2B buyers surveys on the decision making process for practical inspiration.
What is a conversational survey (and how does AI change the game)?
Conversational surveys feel like back-and-forth chats instead of dull online forms. This is a game-changer for response rates and honesty — buyers relax, open up, and give context you won’t get from a static form.
Manual surveys | AI-generated conversational surveys |
|---|---|
Time-consuming setup (design each question, logic) | Instant setup, just describe your goal |
No real-time followup or clarifying questions | Dynamic followups probe for deeper insights automatically |
Dull experience for respondents | Engaging, feels like a chat with a friendly researcher |
Why use AI for B2B buyer surveys? AI survey generation isn’t just faster — it’s smarter. The AI leverages up-to-date market knowledge, building question sets that experts themselves would ask. Every follow-up is generated on-the-fly for each respondent, unlocking better data quality and more detail at scale. If you’re looking for a top-notch AI survey example, Specific delivers the best-in-class user experience, designed for smooth, conversational chats that work beautifully on any device.
Want to see more on survey creation? Dive into our in-depth article on how to create a B2B buyer survey for the decision making process.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are the secret sauce of every high-quality B2B buyer survey. They transform ambiguous, generic, or incomplete responses into rich, actionable insights. With Specific, our AI asks smart, relevant follow-ups based on every respondent’s last message — no more chasing clarifications via clunky email threads or additional calls. Learn more about this feature in our automatic AI follow-up questions article.
B2B Buyer: "Our team usually takes a while to make decisions."
AI follow-up: "What are the main factors that cause these delays?"
How many followups to ask? Two or three well-timed follow-ups are usually enough to get the full context, while giving buyers the option to skip ahead if they’ve said all they want. Specific includes controls that let you fine-tune this for your survey.
This makes it a conversational survey: every answer flows directly into the next topic, so it feels like a natural conversation, not a box-ticking exercise.
AI survey response analysis, Large-scale text analysis, Easy insights: Even if your survey produces hundreds of paragraphs of text replies, analyzing it all is a snap — AI can summarize themes, trends, and even answer custom questions for you. Read our full guide on how to analyze B2B buyer survey responses for a step-by-step walkthrough.
Automated, contextual follow-ups almost always reveal what you’d have missed. Try generating a survey and see the difference for yourself.
See this decision making process survey example now
Ready to unlock the real reasons behind B2B buyer decisions? Start now, and experience the unique benefits of conversational AI surveys with tailored, dynamic follow-up — insights you wouldn’t get from any form-based survey. Create your own survey and let your buyers do the talking.