Why my answer rate is low?

There are many factors why your answer rate could be low. This document lists the most popular issues with the advices how to improve it.

For the definition of the answer rate, see What is the answer rate?.

What you ask

One of the most significant factors is what you ask. More you want from participants less chance that they will respond.

  • Try to make your question as short as possible.
  • Don't make users think. If you ask a hard question it's unlikely that you'll get many answers.
  • Never ask two questions at once.

When you ask

Another factor important is the context. When you ask a question at an inappropriate time (for example while customer enters their credit card data), you'll get fewer answers.

If you have "Show widget automatically" enabled, make sure that the delay is big enough to give the user time to do what they intended to do. For the best results, consider switching to the manual triggering.

Trigger the widget when they have done their job: a form is submitted, an order is finalized, etc.

Relevancy

To give you answers users should understand what you are talking about. For example, if you sell dog food, it's unreasonable to ask questions about cats. Don't use specific terms if users could not know the meanings.

Question type

Different question types have different answer rate baseline. The best performing type is the "Options" as it allows to give you an answer with just a click. Always prefer this type.

If you can't list all possible options, you can pick the most popular and give users ability to enter a free-form answer using the "Other" option.

The number of options

The number of available options and their length also affects the answer rate. Consider replacing the least popular options with "Other" option.