30 Great Post-Event Survey Questions to Ask

Did you know that the average webinar has more than 260 attendees? While the pandemic has made an impact on the events industry, it’s getting back as strong as ever. Whether you run virtual events using an event app or prefer in-person interaction, events can be a powerful source of new business.

Instead of asking people what they think about the event on the spot, send them a post-event survey right after. This will help you show your participants that you value their opinion, capture any feedback they might have, and improve your events in the future.

Once you’ve picked the right tool, creating a survey is easy. Let’s take a look at how it’s done. 

What is a post-event survey?

A post-event survey is a type of event feedback survey you run after an event (in-person, virtual event, hybrid) to find out what the participants thought about the event. The aim is to get feedback on various aspects so that you know what you’ve done well and what needs improvement.

While event attendees are your most important target audience, you should not forget about your:

• event sponsors
• speakers
• partners
• team members

Sending out a great post-event survey in time ensures that you provide a better experience for everyone involved in any upcoming events you may host.

If events are a significant part of your marketing and sales strategy, you may consider running pre-event surveys as well.

Benefits of running a post-event survey

There are many reasons you should consider sending out surveys after your event, but we’ll mention just a few of the most important ones.

Using a direct source of meaningful and genuine feedback 

You may be aware that people rarely provide feedback on their own. In most cases, they won’t be tempted to do so unless they’re pretty dissatisfied. Research shows that only one in 26 unhappy customers complain - the rest simply leave.

Running a post-event survey lets you control the narrative and ask event attendees and speakers for feedback about specific topics. You don’t have to wait for the off chance that someone may give you feedback. You can get the qualitative and quantitative feedback you need to make a difference in future events.

Assessing your events multidimensionally

We often think about just one aspect of an event which is the event attendees. We need them to get a return on investment from the event, and this is why they get all the focus. However, to prepare a stellar event, you need multiple feedback sources.

Creating a survey is easy and takes just minutes. This is just one of the reasons to create multiple survey types for different stakeholders so you can get a comprehensive overview of how an event was received as opposed to a single perspective.

Drawing conclusions for future events

What went well? What should have been removed from your event? Perhaps the attendees disliked your Q&A session and found a specific speaker boring. You won’t know unless you ask the right survey questions.

Post-event surveys help you find out what you should continue doing and what needs to be eliminated to provide a better experience for everyone involved as you work on future events. 

How to create a perfect post-event survey

If you’ve never created a survey before, you could have a few concerns or questions. Here’s everything you need to know before creating your first post-event survey.

Keep it short

The rule of thumb for creating surveys is that the fewer questions it has, the better it performs. For surveys with 1-3 questions, the completion rate is 83%. The more questions you add, the lower the survey completion rate will be. It may be worth it to send fewer shorter surveys to different audiences rather than one long survey to secure the best feedback.

Send it out on time

When should you send a survey after an event? It really depends, but the only good answer is: as soon as possible. You want to strike while the iron is hot and when the memory of the event is still fresh. The sooner you send the surveys after the event, the better, but ideally, you want to dispatch them within the first 24 hours. 

Juggle with formats and question types

The beauty of event surveys is that you can try out different types of questions: multiple choice, drop-down, matrix, yes/no questions, you name it. Besides questions, you can try out different ways to send your surveys: email, SMS, and live chat on your website.

If you have a sizeable audience, it’s worth testing out different question and survey formats to see which event surveys deliver the best results and the most actionable feedback.

Turn data into actionable insights

When you create a post-event survey in Survicate, your answers get stored in your dashboard where you can see who responded and how. You can get an actionable breakdown of your answers but don’t get stuck on numbers alone. Once the responses stop coming in, analyze them and make an action plan.

Ask some questions sooner than others

You can ask your event attendees about the value they got from the event even a week later. However, if you want to ask about the venue, the accommodation, the quality of the refreshments, or anything else related to the logistics, you may want to ask sooner rather than later to help you prepare for the next event.

Consider incentives

Offering financial incentives to encourage people to give feedback is not always the best course of action, but it can yield great results. You don’t have to offer $100 per survey, but you can provide a small token of gratitude, such as an Amazon voucher or a discount code for your next event. If all else fails, try this strategy to get more out of the surveys you send out.

Ask yourself if you’d fill out that survey 

Would you fill out the survey that you just sent out to your attendees and speakers? Take a step back and see if it’s too wordy, asks for too many details, or maybe, you just sent it out too late after the event. 

List of post-event survey questions to ask

There are many questions you can ask after an event. We’ve sorted some of them for you according to the recipients. Depending on the kind of feedback you want to collect, you can ask questions to attendees, speakers, sponsors, partners, and many others. All of these audiences are vastly different and require a unique approach.

Must-ask post-event survey questions

No matter who you’re sending the survey to, here are some questions for gathering feedback you don’t want to miss to ensure you get valuable feedback for your next event.

• What is your biggest takeaway from the event?
• What did you like most about the event?
• If you could remove one thing from the event, what would it be?
• Did the event meet your expectations?
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this event to a friend or colleague?

Survey questions for attendees

Here are some good starting points to gauge attendee satisfaction:

• How satisfied were you with the overall event organization?
• How satisfied were you with the networking opportunities at the event?
• How likely are you to participate in our events in the future?
• Why did you choose to attend our event?
• What did you enjoy most about our event?
• How satisfied were you with the speakers and the sessions at the event?
• Are there any topics you would like to see in our upcoming events?

Survey questions for speakers

You want your speakers to feel as pleased as your attendees, or even more. Do not neglect them, and make sure to get their feedback about the event.

• What did you like the most about the event?
• Did you get all the information you needed to present at our event successfully?
• How satisfied are you with the overall event organization?
• What is the one thing that you dislike the most about the event?
• Would you consider speaking at our future events?

Survey questions for sponsors

Your sponsors are providing important funding, so they should be high on your priority list when it comes to feedback for future events. Needless to say, they require a specific set of questions, too.

• Did this event meet your overall expectations?
• Did you get a return on investment from this event?
• Would you consider sponsoring us again for a future event?
• What are your overall impressions of the event?
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our event to other business owners like yourself?

Post-event survey questions for online events

Running an online event or webinar is of course different to organizing an in-person one. Here are some of the questions you might want to consider asking:

• Did you have any technical issues registering for the event?
• Did you run into any problems while streaming the event?
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with the way the event was run online?
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate the audio and video quality?
• If you used our support, how useful was it?

Post-event survey questions for offline events

Here’s what you can ask if you organized a physical event, here are some questions specific to this occasion: 

• What did you like the most about the venue?
• What did you dislike the most?
• What kind of activities would you like to see more of in the future?

Start asking post-event survey questions with Survicate

As we showed above, running post-event surveys is easier than you might have imagined. After your event, just grab our event survey template and edit the questions to your liking. 

Once your survey is ready, you’ll get a link to share it on your website, in your emails, in live chat, through SMS—anywhere you can embed a link.

Alternatively, you can also build your own survey from scratch and customize it to your own audience and the type of feedback you want to collect. Whichever you choose, Survicate will help you create and send out your survey in a matter of minutes. And, with the 10-day free trial, you get acess to all Business plan features, so there is no excuse not to give it a go! Sign up for your free trial today!