This article will guide you on how to create a SaaS customer survey about product usability. With Specific, you can build an effective, conversational survey in seconds—just generate your survey and start collecting insights.
Steps to create a survey for SaaS customers about product usability
If you want to save time, just click this link to generate a survey with Specific. Honestly, using semantic surveys powered by AI, the process couldn’t be easier.
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
You don’t even need to read further if you’re in a hurry. The AI leverages expert knowledge to compose the survey for you—tailoring every question, spotting gaps, and even prompting your SaaS customers with personalized followup questions that dig deeper for context and insight. Specific's AI survey generator makes it as simple as a chat.
Why SaaS customer product usability surveys matter
Let’s not sugarcoat it: if you aren’t regularly asking your SaaS users about product usability, you’re simply missing out on actionable insights, happier customers, and revenue growth opportunities. Product usability feedback helps you get to the heart of what your users love—and what frustrates them.
Without real feedback, feature priorities become guesswork, leaving you blind to friction points and unmet needs.
You’ll struggle to spot trends early—issues that, left unaddressed, turn into churn.
Competitors who do survey their users get ahead by making data-driven improvements.
Data backs this up: SaaS companies with mature customer success programs—which always include consistent surveys—experience 12% higher revenue growth rates and 19% higher gross margins versus peers that don’t do this work.[1] With those kinds of numbers, it’s clear: feedback isn’t just nice to have, it’s critical. The importance of SaaS customer recognition surveys and the benefits of SaaS customer feedback truly show in ROI and in user retention.
What makes a good product usability survey?
Not every survey is created equal. To get high-quality, actionable responses from SaaS customers, your questions need to be:
Clear and unbiased—avoid jargon and leading language
Conversational—make users feel comfortable and heard, not interrogated
Concise—keep it short; research shows 2-3 minutes (5-7 questions) is the sweet spot for in-app surveys, and 5-7 minutes (10-15 questions) for email surveys, leading to better engagement and higher data quality.[2]
Let’s visualize this for a second:
Bad Practices | Good Practices |
|---|---|
Confusing jargon, vague or loaded questions | Simple, specific, neutral wording |
Wall of text | Short, conversational prompts |
No followup, stops at surface-level | AI followups dig for context where needed |
Ultimately, what tells you your survey is effective? It’s a mix of response rate and response quality—high engagement (lots of answers) paired with truthful, detailed feedback. That’s what you should aim for with every SaaS customer product usability survey you create.
Question types and examples for SaaS customer surveys about product usability
Building a survey isn’t just about copying generic templates. Let's break down the question types that make a difference for SaaS customer feedback around product usability—and when to use each for the best insights.
Open-ended questions let respondents share their thoughts in their own words—which is powerful for discovering unexpected insights. Use these when you want honest, nuanced feedback or stories about real experiences. For example:
What’s one thing you find frustrating or confusing when using our product?
Describe a recent situation where our product saved you time—or caused you headaches.
Single-select multiple-choice questions are fantastic for quickly benchmarking user preferences or tracking trends over time. They keep things focused, especially when you have clear hypotheses. For example:
Which feature do you use most frequently?
Dashboard/Analytics
Integrations
Collaboration tools
Account settings
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question is industry-standard for measuring customer loyalty. It’s reliable for SaaS, especially when you add a followup “why?” for a richer story. Want to auto-create a ready-to-go NPS survey? Try this generator. Example:
How likely are you to recommend our product to a colleague?
Followup questions to uncover "the why" are essential when a user gives a vague or intriguing answer. They help you move from the "what" to the "why," transforming generic feedback into actionable insight. For example:
Why did you choose that feature as your favorite?
Can you tell us more about what made that experience frustrating?
For a deeper dive into survey design and the best practices (including more question examples and tips), check out our guide on best questions for SaaS customer product usability surveys.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey turns a traditional, static form into a fluid, chat-like interaction. Instead of dumping all the questions at once, it adapts the flow, probes deeper when needed, and feels much more like a real conversation than an interrogation. Using AI for survey generation changes the game—even long or complex surveys become approachable, and the experience feels tailored rather than one-size-fits-all.
Manual surveys | AI-generated conversational surveys |
|---|---|
Static, fill-in-the-blanks forms | Interactive, adapts based on answers |
Time-consuming to set up | Ready in seconds, even for unique topics |
Followups require manual setup | AI generates smart followups automatically |
Why use AI for SaaS customer surveys? Frankly, it makes everything easier. With an AI survey builder like Specific, you get tailored questions, automatic followups, and a much higher chance of respondents giving you meaningful responses. AI surveys are more engaging for users and less work for you—AI survey example creation is no longer a slog, it’s a conversation. And with Specific, the user experience is the best in class, for both survey creators and respondents. The platform is designed for maximum ease and engagement, making every feedback opportunity count. If you want to learn more about how to create a survey with AI, check out our detailed guide to survey setup and feedback.
The power of follow-up questions
Most static surveys fall flat because they stop at surface-level answers. With automated followup questions, which you can learn more about in-depth here, your survey mimics a genuine conversation and taps into context plus nuance—something traditional forms never do. Specific leverages AI to ask real-time, expert-level followups based on the user’s actual response and the survey’s context. This means you receive responses that aren't just surface observations but go several layers deeper. Automated followups also save enormous time you’d otherwise spend emailing or pinging users with clarification requests. With this, your SaaS customers feel heard, and your data becomes richer.
Consider what happens if you don’t ask any followup questions:
SaaS customer: "Sometimes the dashboard is slow."
AI follow-up: "Can you describe which part of the dashboard feels slowest or share a recent example?"
Without that followup, you’d never know if "slow" means data loads, charts, or even a bug tied to a browser plugin.
How many followups to ask? Typically, 2–3 well-placed followups are plenty. You want to dig for clarity and specifics, but not fatigue the respondent. When you reach a logical endpoint or get the details you need, your AI survey should automatically move to the next topic. Specific offers a simple setting to control this behavior, keeping things smooth and non-intrusive.
This makes it a conversational survey: the back-and-forth ensures your SaaS customers feel like they’re talking to a person, not filling out a faceless form.
AI survey analysis, AI feedback tools, GPT-powered response analysis: With AI, analyzing dozens (or thousands) of open-ended, followup-rich responses is a breeze. Just let AI surface key themes and trends. Dive deeper into how to analyze your survey feedback over at our analysis guide.
Survey followups are a completely new concept in mainstream survey tools—try generating a survey with automatic followup questions and see how much more insight you unlock.
See this product usability survey example now
See how fast you can generate a SaaS customer product usability survey that adapts to every user—with tailored followup questions, actionable insights, and an engaging, conversational format. Create your own survey and capture insights today.