This kind of project seems to be predestined for using survey tools like medallia or usabilla. You could set up this tool, have it popped up when your members are active in the community and ask them your questions.

My recommendation would be to make it as easy as possible to take part, so you get a lot of feedback. The easiest way for users (and for you) would be to just select answers from a predefined list instead of having to write own answers in text fields. The quality of responses might be better when people write their individual answers, but it’s much harder to sum up this kind of feedback compared to “34% of users picked answer A”.

I’d also recommend to communicate transparently how long it will take to fill out the survey (“This survey takes about two minutes to answer four quick questions that will help us make the community better”).

If you want to use inSided’s tools, there is only the poll function. But you can only post one question at a time (in one post) so it’s very limited.

Depending on the priority of this project you might want to use a combined approach between a survey tool and individually talking to power users. This way you will get (quantity) feedback from a good portion of your user base while at the same time being able to get more in-depth (quality) feedback from the users who are the most active. For a more individual approach you could set up a private category (or use the new group function), invite a couple of users and ask them some question (each in an own posting) so they can use the comment function to respond and you have the opportunity to ask follow-up questions.

Thanks @bjoern_schulze we have Usabilla already for contact deflection purposes. In fact we’ve just reduced it in length to try and increase participation - this worked very well. But this does mean we no longer have those extra insights. 

I like this idea, and I need to get familiar with the new group function for sure! 

There’s an added benefit (I feel anyway) of a phone or web cam conversation. It is more personable, a relationship of some form is built, and follow up questions are asked easier, leading to better insight. 

The benefit of a regular visitor feeling a fresh dose of appreciation cast upon them is a big plus side of actual, in depth interviews…. don’t you think?

On a side note, are there legal or security implications to consider with these? For example, my company has banned Zoom chats for security reasons.