Follow-up Questions for SaaS: When and How to Use Them [+ Examples]

Follow-up questions serve as a valuable hack for collecting additional feedback from your in-app surveys.

But there’s a right time and place to ask survey respondents for more of their time. That’s why we made this guide, so you can fully understand what’s a wise use case for follow-up questions and how you should frame them to maximize their value.

What are follow-up questions?

Follow-up questions are additional queries that trigger after a user has responded to a microsurvey. They’re open-ended questions designed to ask more details about the user’s answer so it can complement quantitative data with qualitative.

The main benefit of follow-up questions is that they give respondents the space to expand or clarify their original answer—yielding richer, more qualitative results.

Why should you use follow-up questions?

The value and benefits that follow-up questions can add to your surveys (particularly in-app surveys) are tremendous for the little effort you need to make, for example:

• It allows you to understand customer issues on a deeper level as it dives into the context of the problem so you can provide proactive support.
• Follow-up questions serve as a way to identify issues or areas for improvement in your app. Why are customers getting stuck? What does the user expect to achieve at a specific stage?
• You can aid your decision-making with invaluable qualitative data. Follow-up questions work very well to complement the quantitative data from surveys, allowing you to not only provide solid benchmarks but also give context to the numbers and influence the strategic directions of your product development.

When should you ask follow-up questions?

If you’re not thoughtful about it, follow-up questions might annoy respondents or provide very little insight. So let’s go through some instances and purposes where adding follow-up questions can provide more value:

For collecting feedback about onboarding

During the onboarding process, follow-up questions can collect feedback on what went well and what elements need tweaking. For example, you might ask the user how easy it was to understand the instructions, or if there was any particular step that seemed unnecessary or complicated.

However, it also depends on when you’re asking. There are two instances where you can trigger follow-up questions during onboarding:

• After the user has made a specific interaction with your product (such as using a feature for the first time, changing settings, etc.). Here, you can ask users about their experience with, for example, trying a feature for the first time.
• Once the user has finished the onboarding phase. This is an opportunity to ask users how they’d rate the entire process.

To automate these questions, you need a feedback tool like Userpilot that allows you to set specific trigger conditions (such as performing a particular action in-app) and the audience you want to target.

Example questions

Here’s a small list of example questions you can use during onboarding:

• What aspect of our onboarding process did you find most helpful?
• Is there anything specific about the onboarding that you found confusing or challenging?
• What could we do to improve your onboarding experience?
• How easy is it to use [core feature]?

To dig deeper into user satisfaction level

As said before, follow-up questions are best used to complement quantitative data.

In this case, quantitative feedback means satisfaction surveys that use number-based ratings or Likert scale responses such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), and CSAT surveys.

When following up on these surveys with open-ended questions, you can further understand why users are choosing to rate your product with high or low scores. If they rate it high, you can ask them what they appreciate the most; or what went wrong if they rate it low.

For example, if you’re getting low CES. How do you know if it’s due to the UI? Or because the features require rework? You can only know it with follow-up questions for in-app surveys—which you can quickly add using software:

Example questions

Let’s look at some questions you can trigger depending on the user’s score:

• Thank you for your high rating! What specific aspects of our product or service do you appreciate the most?
• We’re sorry to hear about your experience. Can you provide details on what didn’t meet your expectations?
• If we could change one thing about our product or service to improve your satisfaction, what would it be?
• Is there a specific aspect we should improve to better meet your needs or expectations?
• Thank you! One more question, why did you choose that score?

To learn more about a previous answer

Besides quantitative surveys, follow-up questions are also helpful for multiple-choice surveys, as these can leave room for the user to add more details to the previous question.

Imagine you ask your users how frequently they use a specific feature, a follow-up question such as “Could you please explain why you use this feature as often as you do?” can provide you with the user’s perspective and intent (which opens opportunities to provide more value down the road).

Or, if they say they’re having issues with your product, you can ask them to elaborate further so you can quickly spot the problem and fix it as soon as possible.

To do this, you can use a tool like Userpilot to add a logic-based follow-up question to your in-app surveys. This way, you can set up targeted questions depending on the user’s answer and collect richer feedback.

Example questions

Let’s see some examples of good follow-up questions you can add to your in-app surveys:

• Thank you for sharing your concern. Could you describe the specific issue you encountered in more detail?
• Could you share your reasoning behind this choice or what influenced your decision?
• What aspects or features of the product led you to select this particular option?
• What other features do you expect to see in the near future?

Incorporate follow-up questions for “Other” responses

It’s not unusual to have predefined options fall short in multiple-choice surveys, that’s why the “other” option is often used.

But more often than not, your survey participants will be willing to give more details than just “other”.

This is when follow-up questions can provide value, as they allow you to capture specific details, context, and thoughts that you’d miss out on if you only relied on multiple-choice surveys.

For instance, if a user selects “Other” in the same question about why they’re canceling their subscription, you could ask them to provide more details or specify their response.

This way, you leave room for the user to provide more reasons, expectations, and specific situations that you’re unaware of and work to improve them.

Example questions

Let’s see some follow-up question examples for this type of survey:

• Could you please provide more details or specify your response?
• Could you elaborate on your suggestion or idea?
• Can you share more about your experience or any additional comments you have?

Ask for follow-ups after a cancellation

Churn represents a good opportunity to learn how you can do better—which is why there are cancellation surveys.

For this type of survey, you can leverage follow-up questions to glimpse into the specific reasons behind churn.

Whether it’s due to product features, pricing, customer service, or any other factor, adding an open-ended question after a churn survey can help pinpoint areas of improvement, assist you in formulating targeted user retention strategies, or ultimately find ways to reduce churn rate.

Example questions

Let’s look at some follow-up questions you can add to your churn surveys:

• We’re sorry to see you go. Can you share the primary reason for canceling your subscription?
• Is there a specific issue or challenge you encountered that led to the cancellation?
• Were there any expectations we didn’t meet that influenced your decision?
• We value your feedback. Are there any specific aspects of our product or service you believe we should improve to better meet your needs?
• Is there something we could have done differently to prevent your cancellation?
• What changes or enhancements would have encouraged you to continue using our service?

How to ask the right follow-up question?

Just like you need to ask follow-up questions at the right time, you also need to know how to frame these questions correctly.

When done well, you’ll successfully collect high-quality feedback and optimize your product accordingly. So, here are some tips to ask the right follow-up question:

• Make it actionable. Design your questions so the answers can lead to actionable insights you can apply. E.g., “What changes would you like to see?”
• Be context-specific. Make sure your questions are relevant to the purpose of the survey and the answer that the user provided.
• Use open-ended questions. Allow room for your users to provide elaborate feedback on their experience. E.g., “How was your experience with…” or “Provide more details about…”
• Stay neutral. Ensure that your customer’s responses are unbiased and totally free from any influence.
• Keep it clear and simple. Avoid complicated, jargon-filled questions. Keep your language straightforward and understandable.

Conclusion

Follow-up questions are a low-hanging fruit to get more insights from your in-app surveys.

When used well, you can amass invaluable insights, add depth to your feedback, and finally, design your product features according to real user needs and expectations.

Now, you’ll need survey software to automate this process. So, why not book a Userpilot demo and see how you can upgrade your user research game?