Picture this: you’ve just waved the last guest out of your venue as your event wraps up. You think it went well—but then again, you weren’t an attendee. How will you know for sure how it landed?
You’ll have to ask your guests what they thought. Namely, you’ll need to send a post-event survey, no longer than a day after your event.
The insights you can gain here are invaluable: you can find out which aspects of the event were a hit and which could have been better. And you can gauge whether or not you would call it a success overall.
Post-event surveys are straightforward enough, but there’s something of an art to them. Your guests aren’t obliged to fill out anything, so you want to make the process as quick and painless as possible—all while getting as many useful insights as you can.
At Kindred, we’ve hosted hundreds of successful events and have sent out our fair share of surveys. Here’s our advice for crafting your own.
Contents
What’s your objective?
Types of post-event questions
Must-ask questions
Post-event survey questions for conferences
Calculating your NPS score
Public events, like panel talks
Charity events
Sending your survey
What’s your objective?
Your survey should collect information that will help you determine whether you’ve met your event objectives—and to see where you could improve in future.
We’ve spoken about how to set event planning objectives in more detail elsewhere, but briefly: these should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, if you’re hoping that your event will boost company morale, your objective might be to see a 10% increase in positive responses regarding the company in the post-event survey.
You can also learn how your event landed. Was it informative, well-run, or inspiring? Were there certain parts that people felt dragged on?
Once you’ve pinned down the most important things you want to learn from your attendees, you can start forming your questions.
And as a rule of thumb, try to keep your survey under 10 questions. If it’s too long, people just won’t do it.
Types of post-event questions
Certain types of questions are simpler to answer than others: for example, those that ask you to give a rating of 1-5. We suggest having the bulk of your questions be either:
- Rating scale questions—i.e. rate your experience from 1-5
- Likert scale questions—a 5-point scale for measuring satisfaction. For example, answering from “very satisfied” to “very dissatisfied”, or “very poor” to “very good”
- Multiple choice questions—choosing one or multiple options from a list
- Yes/no questions
These types of questions are less work for your guests but also make it easier for you to draw conclusions. For example, you can calculate average satisfaction scores or see at a glance which aspects of your event were less impactful.
But what if you want to collect your guests’ opinions? Use an open-ended question where they can type out a response. Keep this succinct—if they have to write an essay, they’ll probably just abandon the form altogether.
Must-ask questions
The staples that make sense for every event.
Overall, how would you rate the event?
Likert scale
This will give you a snapshot of how satisfied your guests were with the event. Think of it as your overall grade for how well things went.
Please rate your satisfaction with the following aspects of the event
Ranking
This is an easy way to get a lot of great information quickly. Ask your guests to rate different elements of your event, like the venue, quality of sessions/speakers, date and time, ticket price, etc.
What was your favourite part of the event? Why?
Open-ended
Your guests’ responses might surprise you. And that’s a good thing!
How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?
NPS
You can use these results to calculate your net promoter score (NPS)—more on this below.
How likely are you to attend future events with us?
Likert scale
Here, you basically want to know whether your guests enjoyed themselves enough to come back. If the answer is “yes”, you’re doing something right. If not, it’s a good chance to reflect on how you can improve.
Post-event survey questions for conferences
People attend professional events because they want to further their career in some way. So you want to find out whether your event enabled them to do that.
How satisfied were you with the networking opportunities at the event?
Likert scale
Networking is one of the main reasons people go to business events, so be sure to check if you hit the mark.
How useful did you find the content in the sessions?
Ranking scale
Having interesting content is what makes or breaks a professional event, so it’s super useful to know whether yours landed.
How would you rate the quality of the speakers?
Ranking scale
In a similar vein to the above, but focusing on the speakers themselves.
What topics would you like to see covered in future?
Open response
This is a great question if you’re trying to engage a particular audience (like people within a certain industry, for example) and get them to keep coming back to your venue.
Were there enough opportunities for you to participate?
Yes/No or open response
Being able to ask questions or attend interactive sessions is a big pull for a lot of people, so it’s good to include this one as well.
Calculating your NPS score
NPS stands for net promoter score. It’s a metric used to track overall satisfaction with a company that you might want to track in your survey.
It hinges on the answers to one question, which is answered on a scale of 0-10: how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?
If you like, you can tweak this to make it more specific. For example: Given your experience with us so far, how likely are you to recommend us?
To calculate your NPS score, tally up the amount of responses that gave a 9 or 10 (these are your promoters), and those who responded with 0-6 (your detractors). Convert these into percentages.
Then, subtract your percentage of detractors from your promoters to get your NPS. For instance, if 50% of your survey respondents were promoters and 20% were detractors, then your NPS would be 30: 50-20=30.
Public events, like panel talks
These sorts of events are broader in focus, but generally, they draw people in for the same reason: they want to have a good time.
How would you rate the overall quality of the event?
Likert scale
Above all, you want to know how people came away feeling. Was it great? Could it have been better?
How would you rate your satisfaction with the venue?
Ranking or Likert scale
We like this question because it’s so direct—it highlights problems you can act on immediately. And if your survey isn’t too long already, you can follow it up with: “How could we improve?”
How helpful were the staff at the event?
Likert scale
As above, this is direct feedback on how well you’re doing as a venue. Insights like this are a gift, trust us!
Is this your first time at our venue?
Yes/No
This is a super simple yes/no question but is a great way to gauge your proportion of new versus returning customers.
How likely would you be to visit our venue again in future?
Likert scale
For us, this is the ultimate question: did we do well enough for you to want to come again? You can also add an open-ended question to follow up asking “Why/why not?”.
Charity events
With charity events, it’s the organiser who is trying to engage the guests and win their support. So, you want to find out whether they connected with the topic (and you) and felt that attending was a good use of their time.
Do you feel that you have a better understanding of the issue after this event?
Yes/No or Likert scale
A yes/no question will do the job, but a Likert scale response will give more insight into the extent to which people heard you.
Please rate how relevant you felt this event was to you
Likert scale
Here, we’re trying to gauge how personally connected to the topic your guests felt. The answers could be a reflection of the types of people who came or how well your work was communicated on the day.
Please rate how engaging you found the sessions
Likert scale
Were they interested, above all? This is great feedback for future sessions—public engagement is the lifeblood of the not-for-profit sector.
Is this your first time hearing about us?
Yes/No
This will help you suss out your reach and proportion of returning supporters.
Would you be interested in following our work through email or social media?
Yes/No
The million dollar question: are you going to be one of our supporters? This is a crucial way to measure the impact of your event.
Sending your survey
You’ll want to do this soon after the event, while it’s fresh in your guests’ minds. We suggest sending your survey the day afterwards.
You might choose to offer some kind of reward for filling out the survey, like a small discount or the chance to win a prize.
Remember that your guests are busy people. In your comms, be clear on what you’re asking of them and how long it will take. Something as simple as “it takes five minutes” will do the trick. Generally, the shorter the survey, the more likely people are to complete it.
Your next event
Whatever you’re hosting, your next event belongs at Kindred. With an on-site restaurant, live music facilities, three well-stocked bars, and an expert team on hand to ensure everything runs smoothly—we’ll certainly be able to cook up something special.
From panel talks to conferences, to big parties and intimate dinners—we’ll take care of everything, so you can just turn up and enjoy. Take a look at our venue hire brochure here.