How to Increase Survey Response Rates

I analyzed 3,527,492 survey responses captured over the last year. Here's what the data shows... 1. Don't ask hard questions first ↳ Great surveys start with a VERY easy question ↳ Harder questions come later – once someone has "bought in" to your survey ↳ Consider starting with a Yes/No question ↳ The best surveys created on our platform have an 85%+ first answer completion rate. 2. "Choose one the following" > freeform inputs ↳ Freeform inputs are great for getting raw voice-of-customer language ↳ ...But they take effort to complete, and our monkey brains would rather just push buttons ↳ Freeform questions work best as contextual follow-ups to specific one-of-many questions, e.g. "Do you have a podcast? Yes/No" -> IF NO: "In a sentence or two, what's held you back from starting a podcast?" 3. Write conditional, "conversational" surveys ↳ Don't set up a survey that's just a flat list of one-size-fits-all questions ↳ The questions you ask should change based on previous answers ↳ ...And the question text itself should also change 4. Don't make it about you ↳ This is probably the most important point ↳ You're asking someone to give you time + personal data ↳ ...What's in it for them? ↳ Poor performing surveys don't make this obvious ↳ Great surveys make it clear that the data captured will help deliver better information, better recommendations, better everything – the questions are to help *them*, not *you* 5. No more than 4-5 answer options ↳ For choose one-of-the-following questions, limit your options to 4-5 ↳ If you need more options, show the top 4 first with a "Maybe something else?" option. If that option is selected, show other options. ↳ More options = more thinking = fewer completions 6. Short, punchy copy ↳ Poor performing surveys often have lengthy answer options ↳ Questions with high completion rates have simple, 1-2 word answer options ↳ More text = more thinking = fewer completions 7. How many questions doesn't generally matter ↳ Question #2 tends to have a 95% completion rate. Question #3 has a 96%. Everything beyond that has an 97%+ completion rate. ↳ If you're asking useful questions, people will keep answering ↳ Ideally use a survey tool, like RightMessage, that will capture data incrementally (rather than requiring the full survey to be completed) 8. Only ask what you really need ↳ Don't ask someone's gender unless it will help you give them better content ↳ Don't ask for someone's income unless this will help you qualify them or push them to the right offer ↳ Every question you ask should be framed as something that enable you to give them exactly what they need from you Which of these takeaways resonates best with you? Let me know in the comments 👇 And if you want to learn how to set up, write, and optimize great surveys, check out Segment With Surveys: https://lnkd.in/e9jdwfjn

Increasing the Response Rate of the Post-Audit Exit Survey Issuing and reporting on post audit exit survey is a great way to receive feedback to improve IA's performance. However, even with significant effort invested in building and issuing the survey, audit customers may sometimes not complete it. When this occurs, the CAE should consider the following factors to diagnose and resolve the issue: 1. Survey Length The survey might be too long. Recommendation: Keep the survey to no more than 6–8 questions. Use closed-ended questions for most items and reserve free-text responses for the final question. Consider making the free-text portion optional. 2. Timing of the Request The request for survey completion might be poorly timed. Some teams wait until after the final report is issued—sometimes weeks or months after fieldwork—to ask for feedback. Recommendation: Introduce and reinforce the survey request early and often: - The VP should mention the post-audit exit survey to C-suite or VP-level executives during pre-planning. - The Director should raise the topic with VP or Director-level audit customers at the end of the initial planning meeting. - The Manager should emphasize the survey’s importance during the fieldwork kickoff. - The audit senior or supervisor should send the survey along with the draft audit report in preparation for the audit exit meeting. 3. Limited or No Follow-Up The audit leadership team may have made the survey request only once. Recommendation: Follow up multiple times. Audit customers may be juggling several projects, so a reminder can significantly boost response rates. 4. Relevance of Survey Content The survey questions might focus solely on Internal Audit, which may not resonate with the audit customer. If the survey only asks about the audit team’s performance (e.g., team knowledge or punctuality in deliverables), it might overlook the audit team’s impact on the customer’s operations. Recommendation: Include questions that evaluate both the internal team’s performance and the relevance of the audit team’s output. This balanced approach makes the survey more engaging and pertinent to the audit customer. 5. The Audit Customer is Annoyed or Dissatisfied with IA If the audit ran too long or if the team’s performance was subpar, it may lead the customer to want to move on from all audit-related matters. Recommendation: Give the executive or team a couple of weeks of space. The CAE (not anyone else) should then follow-up directly to obtain their feedback. And they should be prepared to commit to following-up individually with the audit customers once improvements are implemented to highlight time was wll spent providing feedback and the team took action on it.

Half the battle of patient recruitment is getting a potential participant to respond to your outreach. This challenge is particularly acute in the US. Americans receive an average of 26 scam calls and 11 scam texts a week. People have learned to ignore unknown numbers entirely. Your legitimate recruitment outreach gets lumped in with car warranty ruses and fake IRS threats. Let’s compare a cohort of American sites to similarly sized European peers. Both cohorts recruiting for very similar studies. Both using a combination of SMS and phone outreach from within their existing database. Here’s what our data shows us…  • US sites see a 20% lower pick up rate on their first phone attempt  • After three call attempts this gap has grown to 28% 🤕 Ouch! So, how can you improve reach rates? Short of transplanting your site to a different country we’ve found there to be four key levers you have to improve your engagement…  • 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲: While your participant database is your greatest asset for recruitment, leads generated from advertising are 15% more likely to engage when compared to an older database lead.  • 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴: Implementing call branding for our customers resulted in meaningful lifts in the SMS response and call pick up rates. If you ain’t brandin’ you ain’t landin’.  • 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹: Combining phone calls, SMS and email together provides participants with greater certainty that you are legitimate. Sending an SMS prior to a phone call improves pick up rates by 5%.  • 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆: The average lift in pick ups between a first call and second call attempt is 10%. For later contact attempts this diminishes but is consistently around 2-3%. Combining all of these levers together levels the playing field. For US sites following these best practices, we see that our blended approach across multiple channels and with 7+ contact points, is consistently driving reach rates above 75%.

You’ve probably heard your team say it: "Customers are tired of surveys." They’re not. They’re tired of surveys that go nowhere. DHL gets nearly 60% response rates in the US. 80% in the UK. One well-known CPG company had 27 people receive DHL’s survey last quarter. All 27 responded. DHL doesn’t bolt the survey onto the relationship as an afterthought. They build it in from day one. At onboarding, they sit down with the customer and co-create a dashboard. They identify four or five things that matter most. They commit to reviewing it every quarter. And when the customer fills out the survey, DHL calls them back within two days to discuss the feedback. If someone on the DHL team misses that two-day window, their name goes to the CEO. Your customers don’t have survey fatigue. They have inaction fatigue. Fix that, and your response rates will fix themselves.

I ignored survey responses for months. Leads sat cold. Generic thank-yous are a dead end. No follow-up = wasted data. It's like throwing away a treasure map after finding the first clue. Here's the fix. Drives real results. Segment respondents based on their answers. Tailored email journeys using those segments. (Send47 makes this easy). For respondents signaling strong interest—high scores, detailed feedback—we trigger personalized follow-up calls via Awaz. Full integration with our analytics platform, so we get clear attribution. The outcome? Follow-up conversion rates jumped 6x. And our customers feel genuinely heard. Personalization matters. Broadcast messaging is a missed opportunity.

Stop calling it Survey Fatigue. It’s probably “Nothing Changes Anyway” Fatigue. If you want people to keep sharing what they think and feel, you have to earn it. Show them you’re listening and that it matters. Here’s how to do it right… 1. “Where are the Receipts???” Before launching a new survey, show what you did with the last one. Remind employees what they shared and how it led to real change. Even small wins matter here. This is where trust begins. 2. Respect Their Time Run the survey with clear communication and thoughtful outreach. Give people a reason to care while acknowledging the time it takes. Celebrate your early responders and follow up with the rest respectfully, even those last-minute stragglers… 3. Don’t Sit on the Results Your people already know what’s working and what isn’t because they told you. Give a high-level overview of what came up. They don’t need every detail, but enough to know you’re paying attention. 4. Time for Action Pick a few key areas and plan what you’ll do… then actually do it. Planning is part of action, but it can’t be where it stops. Keep people updated on what’s happening and what’s next. Show progress, even if it’s just the first steps. “Nothing Changes Anyway” Fatigue is REAL If your survey process ends with “thanks for your feedback,” you’re doing it wrong. A good survey cycle proves you’re listening and acting. That’s how you earn trust, every time.

Survey response rates: the most common challenge I hear in demos. But honestly, it’s not the customer’s fault. It’s yours. Let me explain. Example 1: You want to survey people who took a test drive but didn’t buy. You send them an email or SMS. Response rate? Zero. Of course, they’re not your customers yet. Why would they bother? Try this: Don’t send a survey. Call them. Have a real conversation. Example 2: You’re a new bank. Your customers are retired professionals aged 60+. You send them a feedback email. Will they reply? Unlikely. Try this: Use WhatsApp. Then call. (We’ve seen surprising response rates on WhatsApp in this segment.) Example 3: You’re an NBFC, and your customers are in Tier 3/Tier 4 cities. And you send… an email? Try this: WhatsApp. Then call. Example 4: You’re an airline, and you send a survey 2 weeks after the flight. Do you think they even remember the experience? If you want better response rates: --Be in your customer’s shoes --Choose the right channel for your audience --Ask at the right time --Most importantly, don’t let feedback sit in a dashboard. Act on it. And let the customer know. That’s how you earn feedback. Not with reminders, but with respect. #VoiceOfCustomer #ResponseRates #CustomerFeedback #CustomerExperience

15% survey response rates? Using behavioral science, it is possible to boost your response rates to 75% with one simple action. How many of you have spent hours crafting what you believe is the perfect post-program survey, send it out with high hopes, and then... crickets. If you're hitting 15-30% survey response rates, you're actually in the normal (yet sadly insufficient) range. The source of our dismal response rates isn't survey fatigue. It's survey design. During a recent conversation with Julie Dirksen on her Behavioral Breakdowns series, we uncovered how the COM-B framework (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation = Behavior) can transform survey response rates: Design for purpose: If you can't explain exactly how you'll use the answer to a question, don't ask it. Make surveys part of the learning: When we move key questions to the START of each workshop session and displayed responses in real-time as a teaching tool, response rates jumped from 15% to 75%. Create a positive data culture: Communicate how data will be used, be transparent about its importance, and always give people something valuable in return. The most powerful insight? When survey data becomes visibly valuable to participants—not just to you—response rates soar. Here are a few other ideas Julie and I discussed that can help boost your survey response rates (and the link to our recorded conversation): https://lnkd.in/eimKe62U. What's your biggest survey challenge? Share in the comments! #learninganddevelopment #surveydesign #datacollection

We were asking researchers to engage with policymakers the wrong way—and it cut their response rates in half. That’s a design problem. We keep trying to motivate researchers to engage with policymakers. That’s not the problem. In an experiment with 200+ researchers, a single change in how we made a request increased responses by 2.3x. Not flattery. Not better “alignment.” Just this: →“We’re hoping this is manageable with your other commitments” That line consistently outperformed ‘This is a great fit for your expertise’. Same request for help. Very different response. Because the barrier isn’t motivation. It’s friction—and whether we acknowledge how overburdened researchers already are 🫠 Most researchers want their work to matter (and be used by government). They just don’t have the bandwidth. A little compassion—and a lower lift—goes a long way.If you want more engagement, stop trying to inspire it. Start making it easier to say yes. What are we still getting wrong? What have you seen actually move engagement in your institution? We’re collecting best practices for a new project (more soon :) !

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating. "Survey fatigue" isn't what you think it is. It's not about too many surveys, it's about too little action. At YMCA WorkWell, I often hear: "Our employees have survey fatigue, I don't think this is the right time to collect their feedback". But here's the thing. Employees aren't tired of providing feedback and and they aren't tired of speaking up to try and make their work better. They're tired of nothing changing when they do. A survey isn't the problem, it's feeling like your voice isn't going to be heard. That's what makes another survey feel pointless and exhausting. So if you want to do a survey right, start by asking: ✅ Have we closed the loop on the last one? ✅ Did we communicate what we learned and how we would respond? ✅ Have we made tangible changes based on the feedback? ✅ Have we communicated those changes back and clearly tied them back to the feedback provided? ✅ Do we have a process in place to communicate back what we hear this time quickly and clearly? ✅ Are we really committed to acting decisively on what we hear? If you're viewing a survey as just a round of data collection or something to check off on a box, you're going to fall short. Instead, view it as an opportunity to signal to everyone in your organization that leadership is listening, learning and responding. Because if employees stop responding and start complaining about surveys, it's not because they are tired of a 5-minute survey twice a year, it's because they don't think their voice will matter. So if you really want to address survey fatigue, removing employees' opportunities to speak up is not the answer. It's acting on their feedback when they do. #SurveyFatigue #EmployeeExperience #EmployeeSurveys