How to create prospect survey about pain points

This article will guide you on how to create a prospect survey about pain points—quickly and with precision. With Specific, you can build a conversational, AI-powered survey in seconds—just generate one here to get started fast.

Steps to create a survey for prospects about pain points

If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific. Here’s how simple it is:

1. Tell what survey you want.

2. Done.

Frankly, you don’t even need to read further. The AI survey generator on Specific will create your survey about prospect pain points in seconds. It draws from expert knowledge, choosing the right questions for you—and, crucially, it asks smart follow-up questions to gather deeper insights from every prospect. That’s the magic of conversational surveys.

Why pain points surveys matter for prospect insights

Let’s talk about why you simply can’t ignore pain points surveys for prospects.

• Direct customer input: Understanding what your prospects are struggling with helps you tailor your solution and pitch.

• Actionable insights: You get a clear roadmap about what to fix, build, or emphasize in your offering.

• Reduce wasted effort: No more guesswork or investing in features no one cares about.

Here’s a truth worth repeating: Over 60% of AI projects fail to deliver the expected results due to a mismatch between client expectations and project realities. [1] If you’re not running these prospect feedback surveys, you’re almost certainly missing critical red flags and opportunities. Prospect recognition surveys uncover gaps that traditional market research skips—like company-specific blockers, trust issues, or workflow headaches unique to your audience. The importance of running a pain points survey for prospects can’t be overstated; it’s your direct line to market reality.

And if you’re only guessing at these answers, your competitors are probably already out-learning you. Make feedback a core business process—not a last-ditch effort.

What makes a good survey on pain points

We’ve seen a lot of surveys flop, not because of bad intentions, but due to poor design. The difference between a dud and a goldmine? It’s all about structure and tone.

• Clear, unbiased questions: Good surveys don’t steer respondents or confuse them—avoid industry jargon, double-barreled questions, or subtle pressure.

• Conversational tone: Language should be natural and engaging, so prospects feel comfortable sharing honest feedback.

Here’s a quick comparison of survey practices:

At the end of the day, a successful prospect survey comes down to two things: getting a lot of responses and collecting high-quality, detailed feedback. If you achieve both, you’re golden.

Question types and examples for a prospect survey on pain points

Choosing the right question type is just as important as the question itself when composing a survey for prospects. You want a mix that captures context, structure, and emotion—ideally surfacing what your prospects struggle with, and why. If you want a deeper dive into question design and sample questions, check out this guide on crafting the best questions for pain points surveys.

Open-ended questions let your prospects speak in their own words, uncovering new pain points you might have never considered. Use these when you want stories, not just stats. Here are two examples:

• What is the single biggest challenge your team has faced in the past quarter?

• Can you describe a recent situation where a problem cost you time or money?

Single-select multiple-choice questions work well when you need to quantify common problems or segment prospects. They’re easy to answer and simple to analyze. For instance:

Which area is currently the most frustrating for your business?

• Finding qualified leads

• Converting leads into customers

• Managing customer relationships

• Improving product adoption

NPS (Net Promoter Score) question types are great for benchmarking overall sentiment. If you want to instantly generate an NPS survey adapted for prospects and their pain points, try this AI NPS survey generator. Example:

On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product to a friend or colleague based on your experience addressing your pain points?

Followup questions to uncover "the why": This is where AI-powered surveys shine. Whenever you get a vague or incomplete answer, you ask a follow-up—like a researcher would in an interview. This surfaces root causes and context, leading to better insights. For example:

• Can you tell me more about what made that situation challenging?

• What would have made your experience better?

Follow-ups dig deeper and turn surface-level responses into actionable insights.

If you want to learn more about survey construction, or need inspiration for more advanced or creative pain points questions, check out our detailed guide on survey question best practices.

What is a conversational survey? Modern prospect surveys explained

A conversational survey is what it sounds like: it feels less like filling out a boring form, and more like chatting with a smart, friendly interviewer. This transforms how prospects engage—leading to higher participation rates, richer feedback, and more natural conversation flow.

Traditional survey creation is slow and often a mental drag. You have to manually pick questions, set response types, and hope you’ve thought of everything. In contrast, with an AI survey generator, you tell it the topic ("pain points for prospects"), and it does the rest. That includes smart branching, follow-ups, tone, and question logic—all handled by the AI’s expert knowledge.

Why use AI for prospect surveys? Quite simply, it’s more efficient and produces better outcomes. AI survey examples show that you conserve time, mental energy, and achieve higher quality insights. Plus, the conversational survey format means respondents actually want to participate—leading to more insightful (and more frequent) feedback. Specific’s user experience is best-in-class here: it feels like a chat, not a box-checking chore.

Want to see a step-by-step walk-through? Here’s our practical guide on how to create and analyze a conversational prospect survey using AI.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are the fastest way to turn vague answers into insights you can act on. It’s shocking how often teams settle for unclear data and end up with analysis paralysis. With Specific, AI-driven surveys unleash automated follow-up questions as respondents answer, probing deeper, clarifying ambiguity, and surfacing details an ordinary form would miss. Specific’s automatic follow-up feature works like an expert interviewer in real time, which is especially powerful in uncovering pain point nuance. And given that 44% of sales reps are too busy to follow up with leads [2], these automated questions are a game-changer.

• Prospect: "Our current process just takes too long."

• AI follow-up: "Which step in your process causes the most delays, and why is it time-consuming?"

How many followups to ask? Usually, 2–3 targeted follow-ups are enough to uncover layers of insight without overwhelming people. Specific makes it easy to configure this, even giving respondents the option to skip to the next question when enough information has been collected.

This makes it a conversational survey: respondents feel heard, and every response turns into a back-and-forth exchange—not a static form. That keeps energy up and leads to more actionable results.

Analyzing open-ended feedback? AI makes it easy. With Specific, the responses—regardless of length or complexity—are instantly summarized and made searchable. Discover more about AI survey response analysis and efficient techniques for making sense of qualitative data.

Automated AI follow-up questions are a powerful new concept. Try generating a survey to see how natural and insightful the conversation can get—it’s the future of customer insight.

See this pain points survey example now

Create your own survey to see how Specific’s AI-driven, conversational approach transforms feedback into real insight—no expertise required, just results.