How to Increase Survey Response Rates: 10 Proven Ways

As a rule, people don't have time to answer long surveys. It gets annoying with every new question, and many people can't even understand why they are dealing with some of those questions. So how to increase survey response rates, and what is a good survey response rate?  

Surveys are a great tool when you want to get a decent amount of information in a short period of time. Even a small amount of answers will help you understand your users better and get some insights. Later, you can ask for feedback and see whether you've met customer expectations. You can also use surveys as a way to fill in some blanks in the knowledge about the specific segment that you want to focus on for further marketing work. 

The problem you might face is that it's hard to encourage survey participation. Some people feel like they waste their time filling in the tests as nothing happens after that, etc. Using the next tips, you can increase the survey response rate with time and boost your marketing game. 

What Is a Survey Response Rate?

A survey response rate is the number of customers that took time to fill in your survey. So as with any other rate, the percentage number you can get is anywhere between 0% and 100%. However, we don't know anyone who had anything close to a 100% survey response rate. 

When you run a business, you can't know what you need to improve from the point of view of your customers. This is where you can ask your customers to specify what bugs them and what needs improvement. Even understanding the goal of the survey can increase the survey response rate.

Still, you have to encourage most people to take the survey. The first thing here is to think like your customers, under what condition would you take the survey. And here are some reasons why people omit doing surveys:

• too many questions;
• too much typing;
• the goal is unclear;
• no motivation to fill in the survey.

Survey Response Rate Recipe Is Well-Known

Achieving a robust survey response rate is crucial for any researcher or organization seeking valuable insights from their target audience. Let’s find out what factors influence survey response rates, how effectively invite participants to a survey, and how to calculate response rates for surveys to obtain valuable data.

Factors Influencing Survey Response Rate

1. Survey Length

Longer surveys often result in lower response rates. Keep surveys concise and focused on essential questions to prevent respondent fatigue.

2. Relevance

Ensure the survey is relevant to the target audience. People are more likely to participate when they see the survey as pertinent to their interests or experiences.

3. Timing

Choose the right time to send survey invitations. Avoid holidays, weekends, or busy periods for your target demographic.

4. Personalization

Use personalized invitations, addressing respondents by name when possible. Tailoring the survey to their demographics or preferences can increase engagement.

5. Clear Communication

Clearly explain the survey's purpose, estimated completion time, and how the data will be used. Transparency builds trust and encourages participation.

6. Incentives

Offering incentives, such as discounts, gift cards, or entries into a prize draw, can motivate people to respond.

7. Ease of Access

Ensure the survey is accessible on various devices, including smartphones and tablets, and the user interface is intuitive.

8. Multiple Channels

Use multiple communication channels to invite participants, such as email, social media, website banners, or direct mail. Diversifying your approach can reach a broader audience.

Inviting Participants to a Survey

1. Email Invitations

Send personalized email invitations with a clear call to action and a direct link to the survey.

2. Social Media

Share the survey link on your social media profiles, using engaging visuals and persuasive captions to encourage participation.

3. Website Promotion

Display banners or pop-ups on your website or landing pages, providing easy access to the survey.

4. Direct Mail

Consider mailing printed surveys with pre-paid return envelopes, including a cover letter explaining the survey's significance.

Calculating Survey Response Rate

How to calculate response rates for surveys? To calculate the response rate, divide the number of completed surveys by the total number of invitations sent and multiply by 100 to express it as a percentage:

A higher response rate indicates a more representative sample and reliable survey results. Effective strategies for inviting participants and optimizing the survey experience are essential to achieving a meaningful response rate.
Don’t forget to use pop-ups with a survey. You can choose a template from Claspo library or create a survey from scratch easily: the builder has components such as checkbox, radio button, and drop-down list. In addition, pop-ups can invite a customer to take a survey (promising incentives for responses) and redirect to it.

Increasing Survey Response Rates: 10 Ways

Increasing survey response rates is crucial as low rates are survey-destroyers. If you run badly-designed surveys, people will omit them at all costs, so be patient with that. Don't rush if you need some time to make your survey better. Here's how to increase survey response rates. 

1. Use Rewards

Rewards and other freebies can do wonders when it's time to encourage survey participation. If you offer people something valuable, even of a small value, the chances that you'll have more responses will grow. Distribute your budget to:

• Offer a small reward for everyone. It is a better strategy to give a small reward to every user that fills in the survey rather than giving one big present to only one person.
• Describe to the users the necessity to answer your survey. It will take them up to 5 minutes to fill in, and you'll get an infinite benefit to upgrade your business.
• Tell users the goal of your survey and how you will use their answers.

To encourage people to answer questions right here and right now, you can offer more worthy rewards for the first hundred respondents. 

2. Use Survey Panel

You can select particular people who would gladly take part in your survey questionnaire. In most cases, the respondents are volunteers who are ready to be a part of your research panel. It can save you time and money as you don't have to find or ask people each time you need to check something via the survey.

It means that you can use your customer base or employees if you haven't reached your perfect audience yet. But remember that these people are the same from survey to survey, so you should work on your questions based on this information.

With Claspo exit-intent targeting only website visitors planning to leave can see your pop-up. Choose the appropriate condition when setting up your pop-up and invite customers to share their reasons for leaving the website via a survey.

3. Use Cognitive Dissonance

Using simple psychological techniques might give you unexpectedly good results and rates. You can get answers simply by putting questions in a specific form where people will feel the urge to answer them.

You should create questions in a form that meets the beliefs and values of the person who answers the survey. These beliefs and values will be known after you do thorough research on your target audience. So if you run a store with child products, you will spread your survey among mothers. It means that you can create questions that a mother can't pass by.

This approach still doesn't promise you 100% of success, but it is one of the options you can test or try to incorporate into your regular survey. 

4. Use Time

Time is your friend here. You can plan on asking people during different steps of their customer journey based on the goal of your survey. If you ask for general feedback about the provided shopping experience, it is better to ask people right away. If you want to find out how people feel about your product, then give them a month to test it and then ask for a review. 

5. Use the Right Channel

Once again, after learning about your audience, you can see where most of them spend their time on the Internet. This information will help you share your request with the right people that are actually valuable as a source of information.

The most popular channels are email and SMS, but you can also check out social media if your audience spends time there and you know how to reach them. You can embed the questions into your letters or platform questionnaires, but it is only possible if you have up to 5 questions. 

6. Use Short Surveys

If you offer your customers to fill in a short survey, there are more chances that they will do it. But if you want them to spend more than 5 minutes on it — beware. With each minute, the number of respondents drops, and you won't get the desired results.

To make people answer your questions more, you should create short surveys with simple and easy-to-understand questions. The users won't stop to think twice about one particular question. 

7. Use Your Honesty

Be honest with your customers if you want them to be honest. Tell them why you need this survey and how long it will take them to fill it in. You can also add a progress bar, so users will always know how much is left. 

8. Use Pop-Ups

There is a powerful tool right before you — a pop-up window that you can add to your website with simple add-ons. Claspo can help you with that. 

It is an easy technique as it doesn't require much work except forming questions. In our Pop-Up Surveys: Everything You Need to Know article, you can find out everything on this topic.

Claspo functionality allows you to flexibly configure display rules. If a customer visited several pages on your website but did not make a purchase or was inactive on the site for a long time, you can display your pop-up with a survey and find out what difficulties they encountered.

Moreover, you can control who will see pop-ups on your site. If you asked a customer to complete a survey in your email newsletter, you can show the pop-up to those users who came from this email. It can either contain a survey or quickly redirect to a survey page.

9. Use Personalization

Personalization is a must-have that can change your results dramatically. If you go directly to a person and ask for a specific item by their name, it will be a game-changer. For example:

Hey, [customer's name]! 

We are glad you purchased your [item's name]. What do you think about it and about our service? 

10. Use Reminders

Don't be afraid to remind people to fill in the survey. It doesn't mean that you have to write to them all the time about that, but gently remind them that you are expecting their feedback. 

We also suggest writing to your customers after the survey has ended, showing its results in the form of pictures or infographics. This is how you show your customers that their responses are valuable and can make a difference. 

Unveil the Value of Data

Now you know that there is no particular answer to the What is a good survey response rate question. However, the fewer answers you have, the harder it's to calculate the representative data. There just might not be enough information to create a reflective database to work with in the future.

Low response rates can create bias depending on the people who took the survey. That's why it is highly important to encourage survey participation and get as many representatives of your target audience as possible. More than that, many factors can influence the rate, like the survey platform appearing to be hard for people, or questions being way too complicated. Essentially, everything should be super easy, short, and user-friendly with rewards to increase the survey response rate. 

Surveys are just perfect for boosting your business as they provide you with information that can be formed in a data-base to help you make business decisions. With the help of answers from your target audience, you can find valuable insights and use them as part of your ad campaigns or as information to upgrade your business. As many people connect with the insights, you can meet customers' expectations and build trustworthy relationships. 

Launching pop-ups on your website with Claspo and increasing your survey response rate is easy! Pop-ups were developed to draw greater attention to specific messages. They bring higher engagement rates since users can’t ignore such messages. 

In addition, you can transfer data to Google Analytics, CRM, and ESP systems thanks to the 5000+ Claspo integrations. Thus, you can track who and how responded to your survey and, for example, work with dissatisfied customers using your emails or instruct your support team to contact them.

Besides, with Claspo's built-in A/B testing, you can check your hypotheses. You can create two surveys, see which one gets more responses, and analyze the results.

Find your own perfect solution with Claspo widgets!