17 Practical Ways To Improve Survey Response Rates(without Bias)

Struggling to get responses to your surveys? It’s like ringing doorbells with no answer—and it’s frustrating. But with surveys, you don’t get many second chances.

The problem? Unrealistic expectations, chasing hacks that don’t work, and rising costs that make you want to give up.

We’re here to change that. Let’s help you boost your survey response rates—with legit ways that work.

17 Smart Ways to Increase Your Survey Response Rates

1. Keep it short and sweet—fewer syllables

Survey questions with fewer syllables are easier to understand when read once. All the more, ensuring that users spend time trying to fill in the responses instead of having to use a dictionary. 

For example, between How satisfied are you with the overall quality of the customer service that you have received from our organization during your recent interactions?                                                                       And 

How satisfied are you with our customer service? 

Which is easier to understand quickly?

Plus, with a decreasing attention span, questions that are easier to understand will have a higher response rate. 

Pro Tip—Ensure you limit the number of syllables between 10-15 

2. Frame it smart—use cause-and-effect in your questions

Framing your survey questions using the cause-and-effect principle can increase the survey response rates. The only catch—it shouldn’t be leading. 

The principle works because it ties the ‘why’ with the experiences making it rational instead of a baseless statement. 

For instance, What has been your experience with our customer service? is unbiased and gives respondents the space to answer. Something that isn’t the case with How has our excellent customer service helped you?

Pro Tip—Always use transitional phrases such as most recent purchase or on a scale of 1-5 to specify objectives 

3. Highlight the must-see parts 

With a decreasing attention span that’s under 8 seconds, you’d want to capture the attention of users in the least time you get. 

It’s simple—bold the key parts of the question. This works as a visual cue nudging users to complete at least one question. 

For example, How likely are you to continue using Canva for your design needs?

Pro Tip—Use a brand color to highlight the critical parts 

4. Color-code your scales for easy reading

Using color codes for survey scales can prompt responses. However, people are divided over this. For this reason, that might lead to highly biased responses. 

However, a study by MeasuringU reveals that the difference in average response is around 1-2%. 

But, it can help bring out a visual appeal, particularly, if you want to reach out to 18-30 year olds. 

Moreover, color invokes cues such as red being dangerous and anger which might signal detractors. Yellow conveys clarity—for passives who know that they are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, and finally, green which reinforces harmony and agreement. 

Pro Tip—Use a consistent color code and discontinue if there’s a difference of more than 5%

5. Boost confidence with friendly prompts

No one likes filling out long surveys, but thankfully there’s a way to minimize incomplete surveys. Use a simple line such as You’re almost there! Just a few more questions can provide a gentle push to your respondents to complete the survey. 

Additionally, you can add a progress bar to ensure customers about the loop. Here are a few tips to help craft engaging prompts. 

• Make ‘em feel valued—Your opinion matters! Let’s get started and make your voice heard. 
• Acknowledge your customers—Thank you for taking a few minutes to share your thoughts. Every response counts! 
• Stress on the impact—Your feedback will help us improve and serve you better. Let’s make a difference together 
• Show reciprocity—We appreciate your time! Completing this survey helps us understand your needs 
• Reassure them—You’re halfway there! Keep going; your feedback is crucial! 

Pro Tip—Address the user as the protagonist to evoke a feeling of personalization for eg. Just a few more questions to go! Your input is making a real difference  

6. Set limits—don’t over-survey

If users had to pick one on why they don’t like surveys, it’d be—because of seeing them again and again. This is why survey fatigue has become a growing problem. 

So, what’s the solution? 

Using guardrails. With guardrails, you could set a frequency. A particular duration after which a survey who has taken or seen the survey won’t be shown again. The ideal duration is 7 days. 

Another benefit includes the ability to send surveys only based on the interactions. It’s not random but a highly specific action that can help take feedback without falling for recall bias.  

Not to forget its role in user-friendly product development. You get to build products based on feedback that’s genuine which helps you do rapid prototyping and testing.  

Pro Tip—Create a cross-functional feedback loop between teams to ensure all are on the same page when it comes to experience guardrails 

7. Add a quick explainer for clarity

For the average human, a question isn’t enough to understand. Adding a secondary description can solve the problem. It gives context and helps users understand better. 

For instance, here’s an NPS question. Without any clue, the survey responses wouldn’t have been genuine.  

Here are a few relevant tips that’ll help:

• Use a different color to add contrast; ensure the description is small but visible
• Limit the question to 18 px and the secondary description to 16 px 
• Keep the character limit between 50 to 60 characters 
• For readability, keep the line spacing between 1.4 to 1.6 px

8. Go mobile-first or go home

Even though it's obvious that a sizable number of brands overlook mobile responsiveness and prioritize desktop. Even when more than 50% of website traffic is from mobile phones. 

By ensuring your surveys are mobile-ready, you can ensure better response rates. Mobile phone users are intuitive. This will make them respond faster. Moreover, the average time users spend on mobile is 4.2 hours per day. 

Here are some proven tips to create a mobile responsive survey:

• Create a single-column layout so it doesn’t break 
• Limit open-ended questions and prioritize mobile-specific actions such as tapping, scrolling, and swipe 
• Avoid using images to ensure faster load times 
• Use CSS media queries to make sure the survey layout and device size gel well 
• Ensure that the tap size is at least 44x44px to rule rage clicks  

Pro Tip—Implement a fluid grid layout that adapts to screen size layout according to percentages 

9. Pop-up where it counts—be strategic 

Survey success not just depends on the right questions but also on how you present them. Most importantly, where you position it. 

Placing it to the right side screen is intuitive as it aligns with the brain. Visual or sensory information is passed from the right side to the left side of the brain and vice versa. That’s why images are processed better on the left while text and numbers are on the right side. 

For surveys that score high on UX, here are ways to do it: 

• Avoid an overlay popup—it’s deadly for surveys 
• Even modals are a no-no because surveys are not supposed to be forced upon others 
• Specify screen size by devices—300px to 500px wide and custom height for desktop; 250px to 350px wide and custom height for mobiles 

Pro Tip—Follow the 90:10 screen to survey pop-up ratio for a smooth UX 

10. Personalize with a warm intro

Surveys don’t have to be boring from the get-go. There’s one thing you can do to make it interesting for your users—add a personalized note. 

For instance, here’s a template you’d want to borrow. 

Hey there! Thanks for stopping by. We’re committed to building a product you'll love, but we need your feedback to improve it. Let us know what you think! 

This addresses the individual by expressing gratitude. Second, the commitment of building a loved product using feedback and turning it into action. 

Personalizing needn’t be tough. Here are a few handy tips you’d want to try:

• Use adjectives like loyal, dedicated, supportive, and active to address the user—evoke emotions such as pride and a sense of belonging 
• Use contractions like you’re and We’d to sound conversational—-build a rapport 
• Throw in a power verb or two like driven and elevate to compel users to take action

Pro Tip—Use exclamations like Thanks for dropping by! express strong emotions 

11. Keep it < five minutes—improves survey response rates 

Surveys that test the patience of your customers are often the main reason for your survey rates declining. One simple hack to prevent it is limiting your survey to under 5 minutes. 

This increases the odds of respondents adding at least 1 question.

This reduces the effort needed plus the mental strain that comes with it. Here’s what you can do:

• Add a simple line like Hey, don’t worry! We won’t take more than 5 minutes of your time
• ‍Ask between 3-10 questions—takes 2-5 minutes on average to complete 
• Use multiple choice questions as it takes less time to answer as compared to qualitative questions 

Pro Tip—Use a 60:30:10 rule to have a split of 60% MCQs, 30% open-ended questions, and 10% Yes/No questions 

12. Focus on recency to avoid recall bias 

Recall bias happens when your respondents can’t recall the relevant instance of interactions or events. Not only does this lead to inaccurate data but leads to false correlations. 

While it can’t be completely avoided, they can be reduced using these tips:

• For smaller interactions, ask survey questions within 15-30 seconds after the survey eg. form filling, navigation menus, and interactive tutorials 
• For bigger interactions, that are repetitive ensure that doesn’t exceed 5 to 9 items 
• This includes patterns such as referring help articles, FAQs, customer support, and a feature used frequently
• Drop clues specifying the type of interaction and context such as eg. adding items to the cart, saving items, or buying shares 

Pro Tip—Run cohort-based pilot survey to test the elements of recall bias—monitor average recall time and response to cues 

13. Stick with your brand—stay consistent 

As simple as this sounds, it’s equally underutilized by brands. By not familiarizing your users with your brand colors and layout, you’re hurting their recall and the app experience. 

Here are a couple of tips that could help you nail native branding:

• Use consistent brand colors—use a logo load indicator to inform customers after each completion of each step 
• Encourage customers to complete link surveys in your app 
• Use a clever copy specific to your brand to nudge users to click such as Thanks for choosing X! Take our quick survey—your feedback improves our product by 1.75x 

Pro Tip—Use the 50:30:20 rule where 50% is the primary color, 30% is the secondary color, and 20% is the accent color 

14. Scale wisely—one size doesn't fit all

A common practice to increase response rates in surveys is choosing the random scale. Granted, you want accurate data but is that doing more harm than good? 

The longer the scale, the lower the response rates. While a 5-point scale is common, a 7-point scale may make it difficult to choose between two closely related options. On the contrary, an 11-point scale may give you more granular data but at the cost of lower response rates. 

Try these tips to increase response rates in surveys: 

• Start the scale in ascending order—this is an intuitive pattern hence responses will be better(46% of responses instead of 43.5% for descending order) 
• Choose a 7-point scale for academic research where large samples are the norm 
• Use a 5-point scale for simple questions that don’t require granular data 
• Use an 11-point scale where high precision is needed such as opinions, and attitudes reflecting long-term outcomes such as NPS 
• Use a Likert scale when you to measure opinions and attitudes based on disagreement, prioritization, agreement, or disagreement 
• Use a numerical rating scale when you want to use these data for deep statistical analysis 

Pro Tip—Use a 5-point scale for collectivistic cultures while a 7-point scale for individualistic culture 

15. Play by the rules—stay GDPR-compliant 

Even surveys have to be GDPR compliant. This helps in transparency and inspires confidence in customers. 

Here’s how you can attain GDPR compliance using:

• A consent box where you’re asking permission to collect data 
• Include a privacy policy where you’ll include the types of data that will be collected 
• Always have survey objective—tell why the survey is done 
• Collect data limited to surveys to signal transparency 
• Make it easy for customers to delete their data 
• Outline the retention period for the data collected

16. Nudge them gently with reminders 

Not everyone is going to respond to the survey, at least the first time. Sending gentle survey reminders over channels such as email and push notifications, may have some success. 

Here are a few tips you might want to keep in mind:

• Limit to two reminders irrespective of the channel 
• Use an engaging subject or opening line such as Brock, Your Opinion Matters—We're Ready 
• Use the preview text to build the suspense 
• The best time to send surveys is on weekdays with a 25-30% response rate 
• Avoid sending surveys on weekends—experience a dip of 15-20% 
• Choose a time that works for your target market—the best days in general are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 
• Schedule a time that works well in the industry—10 AM to 11 AM is the golden hour for surveys 
• For push notifications, the best-performing days are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 
• For B2B surveys, 3 PM to 6 PM sees higher survey response rates 

Pro Tip—Use a mix of emails and push notifications as 40+ demographies prefer email while 18-34 olds respond better to push notifications 

17. Kick off with an easy, objective question

Starting the survey with an objective question is a ‘warm up’ to attend subsequent questions. It lessens the mental effort to answer an objective question. The time required to answer is minimal. 

Moreover, it sets a context from the get-go. It separates the responses and leads them to qualitative questions. While it might affect the completion rate, it doesn’t affect the response rate as respondents will answer at least one question. 

Wrapping Up 

Since you now know the best ways to increase survey response rates, all these work in tandem. One of the many reasons for low survey response rates is not implementing the basics, and not experimenting enough to find your ideal way that works best for you. 

This might seem simple but this is where brands go wrong. Only those who know that it is a constant process and instead of seeking a ‘secret sauce’ will continue to see survey success.