Best questions for prospect survey about decision criteria

Here are some of the best questions for a prospect survey about decision criteria, plus practical tips for crafting them. If you need to generate a survey like this in seconds, you can build it with Specific—purpose-built for conversational AI surveys.

Best open-ended questions for a prospect survey about decision criteria

Open-ended questions let prospects share what really matters to them, giving us richer insights into their buying process. They’re perfect when we want to capture motivations, hesitations, or criteria we might not expect. These questions spark conversation, encourage storytelling, and minimize bias. Here are our top picks:

1. What are the most important factors influencing your decision when considering a product or service like ours?

2. Can you describe the specific problem you are hoping to solve?

3. How do you usually go about evaluating different options?

4. What concerns, if any, have you had about making this kind of purchase?

5. What features or functionalities are essential for you in a solution?

6. Can you walk us through your decision-making process?

7. What’s changed in your needs or priorities since you began evaluating solutions?

8. Are there any dealbreakers or “must-have” requirements?

9. Who else needs to be involved in the final decision, and what do they care about?

10. If you could design your ideal solution, what would it look like?

Building on this, AI-powered surveys tend to yield a higher completion rate (70-80%) compared to traditional surveys at 45-50%, making open-ended formats more accessible to prospects without overwhelming them [1].

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for prospect survey about decision criteria

Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when we need to quantify responses or get the conversation flowing—especially for busy prospects. Sometimes, people just want to choose from a few clear options instead of typing out complex answers. This format is perfect for a quick pulse check, which we can then explore in detail with follow-ups.

Question: Which of these factors matters most to you when selecting a solution?

• Pricing and value

• Features and capabilities

• Customer support/service

• Ease of use

• Other

Question: How soon do you plan to make a decision?

• Within a week

• Within a month

• Within three months

• Not sure

Question: Who will have the most influence on the final decision?

• Me (the respondent)

• My team/department

• Our leadership/executive team

• Other

When to follow up with "why?" If a prospect selects an answer like “Features and capabilities,” it’s smart to follow up with, “Could you tell me more about which features stand out to you and why?” This approach turns a static selection into a conversation that reveals the reasoning and priorities behind their choice. Getting the 'why' behind each choice is where the gold lies—especially when using conversational surveys.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include “Other” when you're not sure you’ve listed every possible answer. Follow-up questions let you uncover unique decision drivers you hadn't anticipated. These often point you to surprising market needs.

NPS-style question for prospect survey about decision criteria

Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for customer satisfaction—it’s a powerful way to gauge a prospect’s affinity for your offer before they buy. By asking, “How likely are you to choose us over other options?” on a 0-10 scale, we can quickly spot advocates, fence-sitters, and skeptics. Plus, companies that use AI to analyze NPS feedback report a 15% improvement in their overall NPS scoring [2]. For a ready-to-go template, check out our NPS survey generator for prospects.

The power of follow-up questions

Automated follow-up questions unlock a depth of insight you just can’t get with static forms. Specific’s AI follow-up feature acts like an expert interviewer, probing deeper based on each prospect’s answer in real time—no extra effort for you.

These dynamic follow-ups not only save you from chasing answers over email, but also clarify fuzzy responses, mine for context, and reveal the “gems” that drive true understanding. It’s why AI-powered feedback collection saves 60% more time than traditional methods [2].

• Prospect: “It needs to be affordable.”

• AI follow-up: “Could you share what budget range would feel comfortable for your team?”

How many followups to ask? In most cases, two or three followups per question are enough to get the detail you need, while keeping the interaction friendly. And when you’ve learned what you came for, you can set your survey to skip ahead—Specific gives you granular control over this.

This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of a cold form, each prospect feels like they’re in a genuine two-way exchange. The survey adapts, probes, and empathizes—delivering a full conversational survey experience.

AI survey analysis: Worried about analyzing open text? Specific’s AI analysis tools make it easy to summarize, filter, and chat about even large volumes of unstructured feedback. AI identifies actionable insights in 70% of your feedback data and processes comments up to 1,000 times per second [2].

Try generating a survey with automated AI followups and see how much richer your prospect insights become. It’s a step change—like having a research analyst on call for every new lead.

How to tell ChatGPT or GPT-4 to come up with great questions for prospect surveys about decision criteria

AI survey builders like Specific let you describe your ideal survey and instantly get expert-grade questions, but if you want to try it with ChatGPT, just use a clear prompt. Start simple:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a prospect survey about decision criteria.

You’ll get better results when you add more context about your business, your prospect’s situation, and your goal. For example:

We sell SaaS solutions for mid-size marketing teams. Prospects often compare us to two leading competitors. Our goal is to learn what stops prospects from choosing us. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a survey to help us understand their decision criteria and hesitations.

Once you have a list, keep refining. Try:

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

Then, focus on your priorities:

Generate 10 questions for categories such as “Feature comparison,” “Perceived value,” and “Decision influencers.”

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys turn questionnaires into real conversations. Instead of static forms, prospects answer one simple question at a time and receive follow-up questions based on their previous answers. The experience feels personal, natural, and much more engaging.

What makes an AI survey generator different from building surveys by hand? With manual methods, you craft every question, logic, and follow-up by yourself. With AI-powered tools like Specific, you simply describe your goals and let the AI generate a complete, dynamic survey—then edit it using chat, as easily as talking to a colleague.

Why use AI for prospect surveys? AI surveys are more engaging, personalized, and—critically—they dramatically reduce abandonment rates (down to 15-25%) compared to traditional surveys (40-55%) [1]. You can iterate fast, gather more context, and surface insights that would take an entire research team weeks to collect.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of creating a conversational survey, check out our guide: how to create a prospect survey about decision criteria.

Specific is purpose-built for conversational surveys and lets you deliver the smoothest respondent experience—maximizing both completion rates and the depth of insights you collect.

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See a live survey example and experience the power of conversational AI surveys for yourself—the fastest way to uncover what really matters to your prospects and boost your response rates.