Surveys play a key role in making and confirming business decisions because they encourage honest feedback and information.
But (not to anyone’s surprise), getting a high response rate is rare. In fact, according to Forbes, most employee related surveys only receive about a 30-40% engagement rate. It’s safe to say that people aren’t big fans of filling out questionnaires. The danger of a low response rate is that it may not accurately represent the views of your target population.
So, how do you encourage individuals to participate in your survey? Throughout the article, we’ll discuss three key strategies that have been proven to help organizations increase response rates.
#1 Get the right people involved
Before launching your survey, it is important to get the right people involved. One of the most important players to serve as a voice of encouragement is your leadership team.
Did you know that at illumyx we see the highest level of participation when this leaders are actively engaging and encouraging members of the organization to complete the survey
Things your leadership team needs to know:
- Purpose of the survey – Your leadership team needs to not only be aware of the survey, but also speak to its purpose.
- Details of the survey – More likely than not, people are going to have questions. Make sure your leadership team is knowledgeable of the following: when the survey is, where it will be held, and who to go to for any questions
#2 Have a clear communication timeline
Like any major project, it’s important to have a clear communication plan in place before the go-live data. For surveys in particular, this involves creating a pre, during, and post survey communication timeline.
Here are the major communication topics to prepare for each phase of the survey:
Pre-Survey
- Send out intro emails to everyone participating in the survey
- 2 weeks before having a C-suite level leader send out an organization wide-communication
- 1 week before have department managers reiterate the purpose of the survey
- Have face-to-face conversations with team about the purpose of the survey and to answer any questions
During Survey
- Inform organization of the sender of the survey
- Managers and executive leaders continue to mention the survey and the importance of participating
Post-Survey
- Directors and Officers to send out a thank you email for participating. This communication will include final participating rate and any future opportunities
- Announce winning teams
#3 Repeat, repeat, repeat
Wondering how to improve your survey responses? It’s all about repetition. Healthy adult brains need to be exposed to an idea or a message 5 to 9 times before it sticks.
Here are a few key talking points to repeat more than once (both formally and informally):
1. The importance of investing in the people-side of the company
2. What we hope to understand from the survey
3. Our survey participation goal (add in some incentives to get them excited)
4. The logistics of the survey – how long it will take, how it is collected, and when it is due
