Using Reusable And Pulse Surveys

Employee surveys are crucial for gaining insights across various aspects of your organization, including employee satisfaction, training needs, event feedback, diversity, and more. This guide offers best practices, actionable steps, and examples for conducting effective employee surveys.

 

ContactMonkey provides two types of surveys for collecting feedback: Pulse Surveys and Reusable Surveys. Each type offers distinct benefits suited to different scenarios.

 

Reusable Surveys are designed for ongoing use, enabling continuous feedback collection and trend analysis. Whereas Pulse Surveys are designed for one-off use, allowing your readers to engage in 2-way commnication with the content being shared with them. Learn more about using both Reusable Surveys and Pulse Surveys below.

Getting Started With Reusable Surveys

Your access to Reusable Surveys will vary depending on your role and team level. Learn more about Teams and User Permissions here.

Role-Based Reusable Survey Access Permissions

Basic Users:

• Can edit and archive their own Reusable Surveys.
• Can view only their own Reusable Survey results and analytics.
• Can use and insert their teammates' Reusable Surveys into emails.

Managers:

• Can edit and archive the teams’ Reusable Surveys
• Can use the teams’ Reusable Surveys
• Can see the team’s Reusable Survey analytics

Admins & Owners:

• Have full access to all Reusable Surveys and analytics across the organization.

Team-Based Access Permissions:

• Reusable Survey results are specific to each team and cannot be viewed across different teams.
• Reusable Surveys and their data are associated with the primary team under which they were created.
• Users can insert Reusable Surveys they created within their primary team.

Reusable Survey Types

Yes/No

• A binary option for quick responses indicating agreement or disagreement.

Rating

• Allows respondents to rate items or statements on a scale (e.g., 1 to 5 stars), providing quantitative feedback on satisfaction or quality.

Emojis

• Uses emojis for a casual and engaging way to capture emotional responses and overall morale.

eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score)

• Measures employee loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend the company as a place to work, typically on a scale from 1 to 10.
• eNPS = %Promoters −%Detractors
  1. The percentage of Promoters is subtracted from the percentage of Detractors to give the eNPS score, which can range from -100 to +100.
  2. Promoters (scores 9-10): These employees are highly satisfied and likely to recommend the company.
  3. Passives (scores 7-8): These employees are moderately satisfied but not enthusiastic.
  4. Detractors (scores 0-6): These employees are dissatisfied and unlikely to recommend the company.
  5. Formula: eNPS score 

promoters_percentage = (promoters / total_respondents) * 100 detractors_percentage = (detractors / total_respondents) * 100

Calculate eNPS enps = promoters_percentage - detractors_percentage

Polls

• Single-choice: Allows respondents to choose one option from a list, ideal for quick decisions or preferences where only one choice is applicable.
• Multiple-choice: Lets respondents select multiple options from a list, useful for gathering feedback on multiple items or preferences simultaneously.

Text

• Provides a blank box for respondents to freely enter thoughts, suggestions, or detailed feedback, accommodating up to 500 characters per response.

These survey types cater to various needs, from quick sentiment checks to detailed feedback collection.

Character Limitations

• Polls & Text Survey Buttons: Limited to 64 characters.
• Poll Options: Each option can be up to 300 characters.
• Survey Questions: Questions can be up to 300 characters long.
• Survey Text Responses & Comments: Responses and comments can be up to 1000 characters long.

Reusable Survey States

Reusable Surveys can exist in three states:

• Draft: This is the default state until a Reusable Survey is included and sent via email.
• Published: Reusable Surveys are automatically changed to published once sent in an email campaign.
• Archived: You can change a Reusable Survey to “archived” to prevent the Reusable Survey from being used in future emails. Archiving hides the Reusable Survey from being inserted in new emails while retaining analytics and keeping the Reusable Survey open to new responses for up to 3 months.  

Create A Reusable Survey

To create a new Reusable Survey, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your ContactMonkey account.
2. Navigate to the Team you wish to create the survey within. 
3. Select the “Surveys” tab from the top navigation bar.
4. Click the "Create New Survey" button.
5. Select from six survey types: Yes/No, Rating, Emojis, eNPS, Poll, or Text.
6. Customize the survey with your question, icon set, and comments toggle.
   • Comments, if enabled, are always optional for the recipient. 
7. Click “Preview Survey” to get an idea of how the survey question will appear to your respondents. 
8. Click “Create Survey” to save the survey and make it available to send.

Quick Note On Poll Surveys

• Poll surveys can be reordered how they appear by dragging and dropping them.

Quick Note On Icon Sets

With Reusable Surveys, you have the flexibility to choose the icons or emojis that best reflect your brand's voice and tone.

• When creating your survey, you can select the preferred icon set to accompany it.
• You can also edit the icon set after the survey is published. However, please note that the icons will not automatically update automatically if the survey has already been sent in emails or embedded in templates.
  • If you wish to update the template, you will need to re-insert the survey into the template.

This customization feature allows you to maintain consistency in branding while gathering feedback through surveys.

See this video on how to create a Reusable Survey in ContactMonkey.

 

Edit A Reusable Survey

Survey Editing Options:

The level of editability for your survey depends on its current status:

• Draft: All fields are editable.
• Published: Only the icon set and comments toggle can be edited.
• Archived: Only the icon set and comments toggle can be edited.

Archive/Restore Survey:

• Archive: Hide a published survey from the email builder.
• Restore: Make an archived survey visible again in the email builder.

Important Notes:

• Always edit Reusable Surveys from the Survey management page, and not within the email builder. Editing within the email builder will result in the Reusable Surveys landing page not updating, which may confuse your recipients.
• Limit edits to necessary changes like fixing typos to maintain consistent reporting over time. Major changes can disrupt reporting integrity, especially if responses have already been received.
• If you edit a Reusable Survey question already sent out, the landing page will update, but the email copy won’t. Once an email is sent, it’s delivered as-is to recipients’ mailboxes due to email system protocols like SMTP and IMAP, which prioritize security and message integrity.

This limitation applies broadly to email sending and isn’t specific to ContactMonkey. Once an email is delivered, its content can’t be directly altered by the sender.

 

Insert A Reusable Survey Into An Email Or Template

Once your Reusable Survey is created, you can insert it into your emails and templates by following these steps: 

1. Log in to your ContactMonkey account.
2. Navigate to the Team the Survey lives within. 
3. Open your email or template, or create a new one.
4. In your desired spot, drag in a row.
5. Within the row, drag in the Surveys content block. 
   
   1. To display the options horizontally, create a new row with multiple columns and drag the buttons below the question row.
6. Select the desired survey you wish to send from the Reusable Surveys tab.

Important Note

Always edit your Reusable Survey from the Survey management page, and not within the email builder. Editing the question in the builder will not reflect changes to the landing page and could confuse recipients.

See this short video on how to insert a Reusable Survey into your email from within the email builder.

 

Testing & Previewing Reusable Surveys

When creating your Reusable Survey, you can preview it by selecting the “Preview Survey” option located in the bottom left corner of the survey slide-out panel.

Previewing lets you see how your survey will appear on its landing page.

If you use the “Preview” option in the Email Builder while creating your email, clicking into the Reusable Survey won’t function properly and will display a message saying “It looks like something went wrong! We couldn't find that survey question, try clicking on it again.”

This issue occurs because the Reusable Survey requires a generated link to function properly, which happens when the email is sent out.

To fully test the recipient experience:

• For Outlook: Use the Send Test Button on Office 365.
• For Gmail (Gsuite users): Surveys are currently not fully testable through ContactMonkey. Sending a Gmail test will result in an error landing page when attempting to open the survey.

Please Note

• Reusable Surveys sent via the Send Test feature won't appear in the Survey Management page.
• The Send Test email won't be listed among the emails to which the Reusable Survey was attached.
• Test responses won’t be tracked in the survey analytics dashboard.

Reusable Survey Recipient Experience

Response Editing: Recipients can edit their survey responses within three hours of their initial submission.

 

Survey Link Expiration: Survey email links remain active for 90 days from their sent date. This expiration applies to the email link itself, not the survey content.

 

Once expired, responses will only be accepted through a new email being sent with the survey; responses from the older link will not be accepted.

 

Character Limits: Comment and text boxes in surveys allow up to 1000 characters for each entry.

 

Reusable Surveys FAQs

Question: Can Basic Users see their teammate’s Reusable Survey results?

Answer: No, Basic Users can only see their own survey results and analytics.

 

Question: What happens when a Reusable Survey is archived?

Answer: It is hidden from the email builder’s surveys modal but remains functional for receiving responses.

 

Question: Can recipients change their Reusable Survey responses?

Answer: Yes, recipients can change their responses for up to three hours from when their first response was submitted.

 

Question: Why is my survey response rate only showing 0% or 100%? I know that I sent it to a list of 100 people and 20 responded.
Answer: If you’re sending to a mailing list alias, such everyone@contactmonkey.com, we can only see that the survey was sent to one email address, so response & comment rates will always be 0 or 100%. 

 

Using Pulse Surveys

Pulse Surveys are a great way to gather employee feedback directly from your email, allowing your readers to engage in 2-way communication with the content being shared with them.  They allow your surveys to have some simple interactivity to them.

 

 

Creating And Inserting A New Pulse Survey

Inserting Pulse Surveys within the ContactMonkey Email Builder could not be easier. All you have to do is follow these simple steps:

1. Access Your Email in ContactMonkey's Email Builder. Find out more here.
2. Each survey requires a new row to relate both questions to the survey.  Think of them as buddy pairs.  Survey and the question. 
   1. Configure the Row by inserting an empty row from the right-hand sidebar.
   2. Insert a text or paragraph block by clicking and dragging the Text or Paragraph box from the right-hand sidebar.
   3. The text in this block will serve as the question and title for the survey. Check out our best practices for suggestions.
   4. Insert Your Pulse Survey Content Block by going to the the content section in the right-hand sidebar and dragging a survey or eNPS into the same row as the text block below the text like in the example below
      

Testing Your Pulse Survey

 

Analyze Your Feedback!

Once the campaign has been sent, you can check the results in your dashboard. For more info on your dashboard, click here.

 

 

Other Notes

If a recipient submits a response to your Pulse or Reusable Survey, they will be able to edit their response, but only within a three hour window of their original response being submitted. 

 

As an example, if a recipient responded to a Pulse or Reusable Survey at 9AM ET, they would be able to edit their response anytime between 9AM ET - 11:59AM ET. However, as of 12PM ET, they would no longer be able to edit their response.

 

This only concerns the ability for recipients to edit their responses, and not the actual submission of responses. A user has the ability to submit their first response to a Pulse or Reusable Survey anytime after a Pulse or Reusable Survey has been sent to them.