This article will guide you on how to create a Citizen survey about the permit and licensing process. With Specific, you can build a robust, conversational survey in seconds—just generate it and start gathering insights right away.
Steps to create a survey for citizens about the permit and licensing process
If you want to save time, just click this link to generate a survey with Specific. Creating surveys has never been easier, thanks to modern AI survey builders. Here’s all it takes:
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
You don’t even need to read further—AI survey generators, like Specific, take your topic and immediately craft a professional-quality, conversational survey. They go beyond static forms, automatically asking follow-up questions to uncover deeper insights from citizens.
Why a permit and licensing process survey matters
If you aren’t regularly running permit and licensing process surveys, you’re missing critical opportunities to improve both efficiency and public satisfaction.
Prolonged permitting timelines cost U.S. municipalities an estimated $6.2 billion annually in lost developer fees and delayed project revenues. That’s a huge chunk of funding left on the table due to process bottlenecks. [1]
Gathering direct citizen feedback lets you pinpoint what isn’t working—unclear requirements, slow response times, or confusing documentation—so you can fix it.
When cities like Chicago listened to real users and digitized their application steps, average approval times plunged by 78% and 92% of escalations were resolved within two days. [1]
The importance of citizen recognition surveys can’t be overstated. They’re a direct line to genuine pain points, unmet needs, and simple suggestions that can transform your workflows. If you’re overlooking citizen feedback, you’re probably patching symptoms without addressing root causes—and may not even know what you’re missing.
What makes a good survey for permit and licensing process?
Great citizen surveys about the permit and licensing process are clear, unbiased, and conversational. That means:
Questions should use plain language with zero jargon.
They shouldn’t nudge or bias the respondent, keeping responses honest.
The format should feel like a natural conversation, encouraging people to open up.
The best measure of a quality survey? Maximizing both the quantity and quality of responses. High response rates signal accessibility; detailed, thoughtful answers mean people understood and felt comfortable being honest with your questions.
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Using legal jargon (“State the statutory basis for your complaint”) | Simple, direct language (“What was difficult about your permit experience?”) |
Only multiple choice/no free text | Mix of structured and open-ended questions |
No follow-up or clarification | Conversational, asks “why?” and “can you tell us more?” |
Question types with examples for citizen survey about permit and licensing process
Diverse question types keep your survey engaging and maximize insights. Here’s how you can use each one:
Open-ended questions pull in richer details, stories, and ideas you’d never collect from a checklist. Use them to find pain points and unexpected suggestions.
What was the biggest challenge for you in obtaining a permit?
How could our permit or licensing process be improved for future applicants?
They shine when you want to capture nuance. For refining these questions or finding more, check out our best questions for citizen surveys about the permit and licensing process.
Single-select multiple-choice questions help structure your data for easy analysis, making it quick for respondents to provide feedback when a list of common issues is relevant.
Which of the following best describes your experience with our permit portal?
Very easy to use
Somewhat easy
Somewhat difficult
Very difficult
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question gives you a high-level snapshot of citizen satisfaction and likelihood to recommend. NPS questions are perfect for benchmarking and then digging deeper based on scores. To instantly generate an NPS survey for this specific topic, use this AI-powered tool.
On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our permit and licensing services to others?
Followup questions to uncover "the why": To truly understand what’s behind a response, it’s essential to ask follow-ups—for example, if someone answers that the wait was long, ask what made it feel that way or which part of the process was the slowest. This brings context, revealing what needs fixing.
Can you describe what caused the delay?
What would have made things move faster for you?
If you want to explore more question ideas or fine-tune your survey, you’ll find deep insights and tips in our best questions for citizen survey about permit and licensing process article.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey isn’t a static form with rigid boxes. Instead, it unfolds like a friendly chat—asking questions in plain language, responding to your answers, and naturally probing for more details. Powered by AI, these surveys mimic real-life interviews, building trust and reducing respondent fatigue.
Traditional manual surveys are limiting. They’re clunky to set up, hard to personalize, and can’t adapt mid-survey. Using an AI survey generator flips the script: you get intelligent logic, instant expert-level prompts, and real-time tailoring based on how each citizen answers. Here’s a look at the difference:
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated Surveys |
|---|---|
Static, one-size-fits-all questions | Dynamic, context-aware prompts |
Time-consuming to create | Built in seconds |
No real-time follow-ups | Conversational, adaptive follow-ups |
Why use AI for citizen surveys? In short: speed, quality, and relevance. AI survey examples consistently outshine traditional methods, revealing detailed pain points and opportunities that forms simply miss. Plus, with Specific, you get a best-in-class user experience—every conversational survey is smooth, intuitive, and engaging for both you and citizens.
Curious to try it step by step? Our guide on how to create a survey gives you practical walk-throughs for every stage.
The power of follow-up questions
If you’re not using smart, automated follow-up questions, you’re probably missing out on the insights that matter most. When someone gives a vague answer, follow-ups gently dig deeper, unlocking specifics that make your improvement efforts actionable. This is where a conversational survey shines—especially with an AI like Specific automatically handling the nuance for you. Learn more about this groundbreaking feature on our automatic AI follow-up questions page.
Citizen: “It took too long to get my permit.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share which step in the process took the most time or felt the most frustrating?”
How many followups to ask? In most cases, just 2-3 well-phrased follow-ups bring out enough depth, while keeping things concise. You should also let respondents skip ahead once their point is made—Specific makes this easy with its automatic stopping logic.
This makes it a conversational survey: with every relevant follow-up, the exchange feels friendly, not interrogative. Respondents stick with it, and responses are more thoughtful and complete.
AI response analysis, automatic synthesis, chat with responses: If you’re concerned about analyzing all those open-text answers: don’t be. With AI-powered response analysis, as shown in our how to analyze responses guide, you can instantly summarize, compare, and drill down into the themes that matter—all without drowning in spreadsheets.
Automated follow-ups are a game-changer. Try generating your own survey and see how much richer and more nuanced your insights become.
See this permit and licensing process survey example now
Create your own conversational survey for the permit and licensing process today. Discover detailed, actionable citizen feedback instantly, all powered by Specific’s expert-designed AI workflows.