Chase responses and close a survey

What this achieves

While a survey is open you can nudge the people who have not answered and watch the response rate build. Closing it is what fixes the result, and it is worth doing deliberately rather than letting the date do it for you.

Required role: Administrator.

Steps

Go to Engagement → Surveys.
Open the survey. It shows as Open.
Read Recipients, Responses, and Response Rate at the top.
Open the Response Rate tab to see the Daily response curve.
Select Send Reminder to nudge the people who have not answered.
When you are ready, select Close Early.

Reminders are something you send

Reminders are not automatic. Nothing chases anyone until you select Send Reminder, and it goes to the people who have not yet responded rather than to everyone.

Example: an HC Corp UK Ltd pulse at 40% after three days is a survey where a reminder is worth sending. One at 85% is a survey where another reminder mostly annoys the people who already helped you.

There is no schedule to configure. If you want two reminders during a two-week window, that is two occasions on which someone has to open this screen.

Anonymity does not stop a reminder working. The invitation is personal even where the stored answers are not, so the product can tell who has not responded without knowing what anyone said.

Reading the response curve

The Response Rate tab shows Invited, Responded, and the rate, with a daily curve of Submissions.

The shape tells you what to do. Responses to a survey arrive in a spike on the day it opens, a smaller spike after each reminder, and almost nothing in between. A curve that has gone flat is a survey that has finished collecting, whatever the close date says.

Example: a curve at HC Corp UK Ltd that flattened four days ago will not improve by waiting another week. It will improve by a reminder, or not at all.

Watch the rate as closely as the score

A low response rate does not make a result wrong, but it changes what it is. A survey answered by a quarter of the people invited is a measure of that quarter — and the people who feel strongly are the likeliest to answer at all.

Record the response rate alongside any number you present. A score with no rate beside it invites everyone to assume the rate was fine.

Closing and cancelling

Option	Description
Close Early	Ends collection now rather than on the close date. The survey moves to Closed and its results stand.
Cancel	Ends the survey without a result. A cancelled survey shows that it was cancelled and has no results to display.

Close early once the curve has flattened and you have the responses you are going to get. There is nothing to gain from an open survey nobody is answering, and a closed survey is the one that shows as a finished point on the trend.

Cancel only where the survey should not have run — a wrong template, or the wrong population. Cancelling is not a way to discard a result you did not like: the survey remains in the list as cancelled.

What happens next

A closed survey keeps its results, and its eNPS, engagement score, and response rate become a point on the twelve-month trend on the engagement dashboard. Read the results, then break them down by segment before drawing any conclusion from the company-wide number.

Where the survey was set to recur, the next wave launches on its own schedule regardless of when you closed this one.