Schedule a Survey

Supportbench

23-Jun-2025

Mastering Scheduled Surveys: A Comprehensive Guide

Scheduled surveys are a powerful tool for gathering valuable feedback from a specific list of contacts at a predetermined time. Unlike surveys that are triggered by a specific event, scheduled surveys allow you to proactively engage with your audience, whether it's for market research, customer satisfaction follow-ups, or general feedback. This guide will walk you through the entire process, from creating insightful questions to analyzing the final results.

Step 1: Crafting Your Survey Questions

The foundation of any effective survey is the quality of its questions. Before you can build your survey form, you need to define what you want to ask.

To Add a Question:

1. Navigate to Custom Fields: Begin by accessing the area where you can create new data fields for your survey. This is typically found under a menu like Configuration --> Custom Fields --> Add Field. A custom field is essentially a container for the answer to a specific question.

2. Define Your Field:

   • Name: Give your field a clear and concise internal name (e.g., "CustomerServiceRating").
   • Label: This is the actual question you want to ask your customers (e.g., "How would you rate our customer service?"). If you leave the label blank, the name will be displayed to the user.

3. Assign the Location: From the list of available locations, select "Customer survey field". This ensures the question will be available when you create your survey form.

4. Choose the Right Question Type: Selecting the appropriate field type is crucial for gathering the right kind of data. Here's a breakdown of common options:

   • Checkbox: Ideal for simple "yes/no" or "true/false" questions.
   • Drop-down List: Presents users with a predefined set of choices, allowing them to select a single option. This is great for standardized answers.
   • Drop-down List (Multi-select): Similar to a drop-down, but allows users to select multiple options. Useful for questions like "Which of our services have you used?"
   • Tags: Empowers users to create their own short, descriptive labels. This can be useful for categorizing feedback.
   • Text Box: A single-line field perfect for short, open-ended answers like a name or a brief comment.
   • Text Box (Multi-row): A larger text area for more detailed, paragraph-length feedback. Ideal for "Tell us more about your experience" questions.
   • URL: Specifically designed to collect web addresses.

5. Save and Repeat: Save your new field. Repeat these steps for all the questions you want to include in your survey. Remember, you can often reuse questions across different surveys, so there's no need to create duplicates.

Step 2: Building Your Survey Form

With your questions ready, it's time to assemble them into a cohesive survey form.

1. Create a New Survey Form: Navigate to the survey creation area, which might be located under Configuration --> Customer Surveys --> Survey Forms --> New Survey.

2. Select the Survey Type: You will likely have a choice between different survey types. For this purpose, select "Scheduled Survey". The alternative, often called a "Customer Satisfaction" or "Transactional" survey, is typically triggered automatically after a specific interaction, like the closing of a support case.

3. Choose Your Community: If your platform supports multiple branded portals or "communities," select the one you want to associate this survey with. The community setting often allows you to customize the look and feel of your survey to match your website, including adding logos and custom text.

4. Incorporate Special Fields (Optional but Recommended):

   • Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): This is a standard metric that usually asks a question like, "How satisfied were you with your recent experience?" on a scale (e.g., 1-5).
   • Net Promoter Score (NPS): This powerful field measures customer loyalty by asking, "On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?"

5. Design Your Form Layout: Now, you'll assemble your survey. Use the provided tools to add, remove, and reorder your questions. Look for a drop-down menu labeled something like "Insert survey field" to add the questions you created in the previous step.

6. Customize the Email Invitation: The email that invites customers to take your survey is critical.

   • From Address and Subject Line: Choose a recognizable "from" address and write a compelling subject line to encourage opens.
   • Email Body: Customize the content of the email. Many systems provide templates to get you started. The "Scheduled Survey" template is often a great starting point.

7. Save Your Changes: Once you're happy with your form and email, save your progress.

Step 3: Scheduling the Survey Delivery

You have your questions and your form; the final step is to schedule when the survey will be sent.

1. Initiate a New Survey Schedule: Go to Configuration --> Customer Surveys --> Surveys --> Create a New Survey.

2. Select Your Survey Form: Choose the form you just created from the list of available survey forms.

3. Set the Send Date and Time: Select the exact date and time you want the survey to be sent. Note: If you choose a time that has already passed, the survey will be sent out immediately. Once the scheduled send time has passed, you typically cannot make any further changes to the survey.

4. Define Your Audience: You have two primary options for determining who will receive the survey:

   • Send to all active contacts: This will send the survey to every contact in your system.
   • Send to a targeted list: This more advanced option allows you to send the survey only to contacts who meet specific criteria, such as those who have had a support case within a certain timeframe. This is highly effective for targeted feedback.

5. Save and Schedule: Review your settings one last time, and then click "Save and Schedule". Your survey is now queued for delivery.

Step 4: Viewing and Analyzing the Results

Once your survey has been sent and responses start coming in, you'll need to know how to view and interpret the data.

1. Access Your Surveys: Navigate back to the main survey page, likely at Configuration --> Customer Surveys --> Surveys.

2. Locate Your Survey: You will see a list of all your scheduled and sent surveys. Each survey should have an indicator showing the number of responses and a button or link to "View Results". Click this to see the detailed feedback.

3. Analyze the Data: The results page will display the answers to your questions. For easy analysis and sharing, look for an "Export" button, often located in the top right corner. This will allow you to download all the data into a spreadsheet format like XLS or CSV for further analysis in tools like Excel or Google Sheets