This article will guide you on how to create a SaaS customer survey about reporting needs. With Specific, you can build an effective survey in seconds—AI does the heavy lifting for you.
Steps to create a survey for SaaS customers about reporting needs
If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific.
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
You actually don’t even need to read further. AI brings expert-level knowledge and instantly builds a survey tailored to your audience and topic—plus, it auto-generates smart follow-up questions to get deep insights. You can explore more options or start from scratch using the main AI survey builder for all kinds of semantic surveys.
Why SaaS customer surveys about reporting needs matter
Customer feedback is the backbone of better product development and user experience. If you’re not running targeted reporting needs surveys for your SaaS customers, you’re missing out on:
Direct insight into which dashboards, metrics, or data exports users need most
Opportunities to spot friction or unmet analytics requirements before churn becomes an issue
A chance to validate new features or identify gaps you never considered
The tricky part? The data needs to be accurate and representative. Many companies see response rates barely reach 20%, and sometimes they crash down to just 2%—which means a poorly composed survey can leave you flying blind with skewed data. [1] Yet, the rewards for nailing it are huge: you learn exactly what customers value, which areas confuse them, and what reporting features turn free users into paid loyalists.
Bottom line: the importance of SaaS customer feedback surveys is huge. Don’t let your team operate on guesses—get structured feedback, discover pain points, and drive product innovation from the source.
What makes a good survey on reporting needs
A quality SaaS customer survey on reporting needs should be laser-focused, clear, and friendly. Make questions unbiased and use a conversational tone. Why? Because respondents are more likely to share honest and relevant opinions when it feels like a chat, not an interrogation.
What drives survey quality? Simple—the quantity and quality of responses. You want lots of actionable input, not just random noise. Here’s a quick comparison to make it concrete:
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Jargon-heavy, technical questions | Plain, everyday language |
Biased prompts (“Don’t you love our charts?”) | Neutral prompts (“How do you use our charting features?”) |
Too many questions, irrelevant to reporting | Focused on a handful of vital reporting tasks |
Keep surveys brief—surveys longer than 15 questions almost always get skipped, and anything over 10 minutes is a non-starter. [2] If you’re not getting thoughtful, complete answers, something in your survey’s design is off.
What are the right question types for a SaaS customer survey about reporting needs?
Successful surveys blend open-ended and structured questions for the sharpest insights. Here’s how to pick the right format for each part of your survey:
Open-ended questions let respondents explain context in their own words. Use these when you want stories, motivations, or “what’s missing?” details.
What’s the most frustrating thing about generating reports in our platform?
If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about our reporting tools, what would it be?
Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you want quick insights or trends you can tally.
Which reporting format do you use most often?
PDF Export
CSV/Excel Download
Dashboard View Only
Other (please specify)
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question is essential when you want a benchmark for product satisfaction, especially post-reporting release. For instant results, generate an NPS survey for SaaS customers about reporting needs right now.
On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our reporting features to a colleague?
Follow-up questions to uncover "the why"—these ask for details right after an initial answer, unlocking deeper reasons and context without a second survey.
The best time to use follow-ups is after receiving a vague, short, or critical initial response. For example:
What could we improve about the current report customization options?
Can you share a recent experience where the reporting tools didn’t meet your needs?
Want more inspiration? Check out our in-depth guide on best questions for SaaS customer survey about reporting needs to see practical examples and pro tips to refine your survey.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys transform generic forms into engaging human-like chats—respondents type freely, receive real-time follow-ups, and feel like they’re talking to a real expert. In contrast, traditional/manual survey creation is often tedious, overly formal, and rarely allows for probing clarification if someone responds vaguely.
Manual survey | AI-generated survey |
|---|---|
Static questions, no follow-ups | Dynamically adapts based on responses |
Hard to personalize experience | Conversational, tailored to each user |
Slow to build, prone to mistakes | Fast, accurate, and expert quality within seconds |
Why use AI for SaaS customer surveys? Specific makes survey writing and management incredibly easy: you just chat your idea, and the AI survey generator does all the structuring and optimization. This saves time, ensures consistency, and gives you an AI survey example that’s both professional and user-friendly out of the box.
Specific delivers best-in-class user experience for conversational surveys. The chat-like feedback flow keeps users engaged, which translates to both more responses and better data. If you want a step-by-step approach, check out our guide to creating SaaS customer surveys about reporting needs.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are what set conversational surveys apart from static forms. They turn feedback into a real dialogue. Specific’s unique automatic AI follow-up feature lets the AI ask relevant follow-ups on the spot, just like an expert interviewer, capturing rich context as if you were there in person. It saves you from endless back-and-forth emails, and ensures user feedback is never shallow or misunderstood.
SaaS Customer: “Reports are sometimes hard to customize.”
AI follow-up: “Can you tell me more about what you were trying to customize in your last report?”
How many followups to ask? Usually, 2–3 follow-ups are perfect. You want to dig for clarity and actionable detail, without making it a marathon. With Specific, you can even set the survey to skip ahead once the needed insight is captured—it’s all about balance.
This makes it a conversational survey: follow-ups create a sense of dialogue, not interrogation. Your users feel heard and understood, which improves engagement and quality of feedback.
AI analysis, automatic summaries, smart filtering: Even with lots of qualitative input, you don’t have to comb through endless text. With AI-powered analysis for SaaS customer survey responses, rich answers are instantly summarized, key themes are highlighted, and you can chat about the findings like you would with an analyst.
These automated AI follow-up questions are game-changing for discovering the real drivers behind reporting needs. Try generating a survey to experience it yourself.
See this reporting needs survey example now
Start collecting actionable feedback with a conversational survey in seconds—see how AI-powered follow-ups and expert question design drive high response rates and better insights.