Best questions for power user survey about performance at scale

Here are some of the best questions for a power user survey about performance at scale, plus tips on how to create them. If you want to quickly build your own conversational survey, you can generate a custom survey with Specific in seconds.

The best open-ended questions for power user survey about performance at scale

Open-ended questions are gold for discovering real user needs, because they invite power users to share experiences, priorities, and candid feedback—not just pick from a list. They're especially valuable when you want to surface unknown issues or learn how users really experience performance at scale. Compared to rigid forms, this approach captures the why and how behind their actions, which you can miss in statistical data alone.

Given that 69% of organizations struggle to bring AI projects to operational scale due to integration or adoption challenges [2], these questions help you dig into challenges and friction areas from your most advanced users—critical when scaling any software or infrastructure upgrade.

1. What is the most demanding task you perform with our product, and what performance issues have you noticed (if any)?

2. Can you describe a recent situation where system performance limited your productivity?

3. How does our product's performance compare when you use it at small vs. large scale?

4. What workarounds have you developed (if any) to overcome performance bottlenecks at scale?

5. What would you change to make the product handle significantly larger workloads more smoothly?

6. Which specific features do you rely on most during high-volume or high-complexity usage?

7. Have you encountered latency or slowdowns during peak loads? What was your response?

8. What is your biggest frustration with performance at scale, and why?

9. How well does the product’s performance integrate with your current workflows and systems?

10. If you could solve just one performance challenge with a magic wand, what would it be?

The best single-select multiple-choice questions for power user survey about performance at scale

Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when you want clear, quantifiable insights or need to lower the effort for respondents. For power users, these questions spark the conversation and quickly reveal major patterns—while follow-ups dive deeper when it matters. Sometimes, it’s easier for respondents to select a defined option before expanding on their answer.

Question: Which area do you experience the biggest performance challenges at scale?

• Data processing speed

• System reliability during high load

• Integration with other tools

• User interface responsiveness

• Other

Question: How would you rate system performance when handling large volumes of data?

• Excellent—no noticeable slowdowns

• Good—occasional issues

• Average—some slowdowns

• Poor—frequent problems

Question: What is your primary environment for using our product at scale?

• Cloud-based infrastructure

• On-premises

• Hybrid (both cloud and on-prem)

• Other

When to followup with "why?" Whenever a user picks an answer that matters to your roadmap, digging into their reasoning is where actionable insights emerge. For example, if a power user rates performance as “average,” follow up: “What situations led to these slowdowns?” This helps you understand what’s behind their rating, making it much more valuable than a number alone.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? “Other” is essential when you’re not 100% sure you’ve captured every scenario. It allows for responses beyond pre-set categories, and you can trigger follow-ups to uncover unknown pain points or unexpected use cases—leading to innovations you might have missed.

NPS—should you use it for power users on performance at scale?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a staple metric for measuring loyalty and advocacy. For power users working with products under massive workloads, it’s particularly revealing. If your NPS is low, it could indicate performance issues eroding trust at scale—which is essential to address if your overall product strategy hinges on advanced users.

NPS also lets you segment promoters and detractors, personalizing follow-ups to dig into the “why” behind their scores. For tailored NPS surveys for power users, you can generate an NPS survey with specifics for performance at scale easily and start benchmarking in minutes.

The power of follow-up questions

Here’s why follow-up questions matter most when you want depth—especially with performance at scale. Automated AI follow-up questions do the hard work of clarifying vague responses, drilling into details, and surfacing context only experts usually collect in an interview.

Specific’s AI instantly analyzes the respondent’s last answer and asks smart probes—like an expert—continuing the conversation in real time. This makes interviews dramatically more conversational and insightful, and eliminates the back-and-forth of email follow-ups that slow down research.

• Power user: “Sometimes it gets slow with big uploads.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you describe a recent instance when the upload speed was too slow? How did it affect your workflow?”

How many followups to ask? In most cases, 2-3 well-crafted follow-ups will surface all key details—beyond that, interest can drop. It’s smart to enable a skip setting once a clear answer is obtained. Specific lets you tune this setting, so you never over-interrogate your users.

This makes it a conversational survey. By dynamically responding to each answer and context, surveys stop feeling transactional—and become true conversations that keep power users engaged.

Easy AI analysis. Even if you collect tons of unstructured, qualitative data, AI tools like the AI survey response analysis make it effortless to group feedback, run comparisons, and highlight major themes—no manual tagging needed. If you want full guidance, check out our advice on how to analyze responses from power user surveys.

These automated follow-up innovations are new. Try generating a survey with Specific to experience the difference—your feedback collection will never feel generic again.

How to compose a prompt for ChatGPT or AI to create great power user questions

Prompting GPT-based tools for effective survey questions is easy once you give enough detail. Start simple, then amplify context for best results. Begin with:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Power User survey about performance at scale.

You’ll get better, more relevant questions if you include context—tell GPT about your audience, goals, and challenges, like this:

We're building a survey for power users of a SaaS product. They often work with large datasets and complex workflows. We want to understand performance challenges at scale and uncover unmet needs. Suggest 10 open-ended questions.

Next, organize your survey by types of experience you want to explore. Try:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Once you see the categories, focus on topics that matter most. Expand with:

Generate 10 questions for categories “integration challenges” and “user workflow bottlenecks.”

Iterate and refine—AI’s output gets sharper with every round, especially using AI survey generation tools that structure questions conversationally for you.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey feels less like a form and more like an interview with a skilled researcher. Instead of hitting “Next” on endless boring fields, your respondents interact in chat, with the AI guiding the flow and follow-ups. This makes each response instantly actionable and uncovers richer feedback. Specific surveys adapt tone, depth, and question flow based on every reply—no rigid paths, just personalized, meaningful conversations.

Why use AI for power user surveys? Power users operate at the edge—pushing products to their limits and surfacing issues before anyone else sees them. Their workflows are complex by nature, so understanding their experience requires adaptive, in-depth questions. Conversational AI-powered surveys are uniquely suited for this, because they adjust in real time and analyze massive volumes of unstructured feedback easily. For an AI survey example, Specific offers a tailor-made experience that minimizes friction for both creators and power users, keeping the process engaging end to end.

If you want to dig into the mechanics of building one, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a survey for power users.

See this performance at scale survey example now

Unlock game-changing insights from your most advanced users with a conversational survey—capture richer, contextual feedback and analyze it instantly with AI.