Your post conference survey questions aren’t something you just have to do in order to avoid feeling guilty—like scraping off a plate for a leftover meal. Your survey is a part of the event. That means doing the groundwork beforehand, so you can time it.

Your survey should be visible right after, or even during the event. You could gracefully plant a link on your speaker’s slides, on the seating cards, or slip it into the thank you email right after. You could also slap it onto the front page of your event app, if you’ve got one of those. The fresher the memory, the more enthusiastic the feedback.

Don’t treat your post event survey like math homework. Treat it like the beautiful, delicate tool it is, and put real effort into the reasons you’re courting it.

Knowing your purpose makes it easier to write the questions that’ll give you real insights into how people lived the experiences you’ve created. For example, do you want to know how you can improve the mood, food, or entertainment of your next event? Or is the focus on location, transportation, and logistics? Knowing this lets you zoom in on plans for the future, or on flaws from the past.

Opinions tell a bigger story than numbers. So how can you go beyond quantity and get to quality?

Simply put, include open-ended questions.

Closed questions—those that start with “did you” and similar—are so-called because they only invite yes/no answers.

Questions that start with how/why/what invite people to explain things, rather than just list them.

Combining an open-ended survey question approach with your focus area will give you the golden nuggets you need in order to improve.

This simple question lets you find the highs and lows, and what made them that way. If people loved the band—maybe it was the drummer’s funky outfit, and not the music that got the high score. These kinds of opinions lets you replicate what works, and avoid what doesn’t.

Here you can include subcategories, like ambiance, food, music, speakers or other stuff. Include a simple Likert Scale from 1-5, then work out the average score for each item to get an overall feeling.

Super important—have you gained repeat business from this event or not?

As every marketer knows, keeping business costs less than getting new business. This means you could value your repeat customers’ feedback heavier than everybody else’s. It’s a simple, valuable way to find out what’s even more important to focus on for your next event.

This lets you know if you’re getting some’ word of mouth’ action—which is the best promotion channel there is.

It only makes sense that people trust friends and colleagues more than strangers’ quotes on your website. And it makes double sense that they trust them over your own claims about yourself.

Knowing what percentage of your guests would recommend you—and why—could be the biggest indicator of what you need to change.

It doesn’t matter if it’s post conference, post wedding, or post Bat Mitzvah. You can’t cover everything. Your survey would be too damn long and boring. Instead, focus on the questions above, zoom in a little bit on your focal area, and always leave people the option to write some further suggestions or feedback.