Susan was having a hassled Friday afternoon. She had a pile of work to finish before the weekend hit, and she was drowning. Mercilessly chopping emails that had accumulated from the week, she deleted an email titled ‘We want to hear from you’ without even opening it. It was not the best time to send a survey to Susan.
The brand that sent that survey was an eco-conscious startup from whom Susan had bought something recently. Customer feedback was their lifeline, but they suffered from low response rates. If you imagine Susan’s situation, it’s not hard to figure out why. They were sending their survey at the wrong time.
Here’s our complete guide to the best time to send a survey in 2023. We’ve covered the best time for all kinds of surveys, ranging from customer feedback to B2B surveys.
- The Best Time(s) to Send a Survey in 2022
- The Best Time to Send a B2B Survey
- Why the Best Time to Send a Survey Matters
- How to Get More Responses on Your Survey
The Best Time to Send a Survey in 2023: What You Need to Know
In this section, we will be focus on B2C surveys, like the best time to send an NPS survey or when to send a customer satisfaction survey. For guidance on the best time to send B2B surveys, you can jump ahead. But if you’re sending a survey to a customer, here’s how to go about it.
1. The Best Day to Send a Survey
Before we decide on the best time to send a survey, we need to think about what day is best for the survey.
Now, intuitions are not going to guide you well here. People usually think that a Friday or Saturday is best for sending surveys, since respondents might have more time on those days. As it turns out, those are not the ideal days to send out your survey.
Studies by Checkmarket and SurveyMonkey have found that weekdays are actually the best for sending survey emails to customers. That sounds counter intuitive, because we’re all overwhelmed with work on weekdays. But this is what the studies reveal, folks.
If we had to take a guess, we’d think that it’s because people are more diligent with their emails on weekdays. Some of those extra responses might just be people looking for ways to procrastinate on their work. Either way, the results are in on this one. Monday is the best day to send a survey.
2. The Best Time to Send a Survey
The best time to send a survey depends on what kind of survey you’re sending.
If it’s a customer survey, it’s best to avoid sending the surveys during work hours. You also don’t want to be sending out these surveys on the weekends, since people are in no mood to fill out surveys.
Multiple studies have revealed that surveys sent to customers between 6pm and 9pm get the most responses. People are mentally freer, yet not completely tuned out of their emails. They’re more likely to engage in a light intensity activity like filling a survey during after-work hours.
By the way, SurveySparrow can help you schedule your email surveys down to the second. Try it for free.
14-Day Free Trial • No Credit Card Required • No Strings Attached
The Best Time to Send a B2B Survey: What You Need to Know
We know now that the best time to send a survey to consumers is between 6pm and 9pm on weekdays. So if you’re sending an NPS survey or a customer satisfaction survey, you should send out scheduled surveys between those times.
Related: The Ultimate Guide to NPS Emails
For B2B surveys for client feedback or even employee engagement surveys, the best practices look a bit different. A whole other set of considerations need to be taken into account.
1. The Best Day to Send a B2B Survey
For surveys where your customers are respondents, you could perhaps consider sending your surveys on weekends. But for B2B surveys, though, that’s a big NO.
The best practices for B2B surveys are a lot like best practices for any other work email. They should be sent during work hours only.
For B2B surveys, you’re looking strictly at weekdays. If you’re sending an employee engagement survey or a performance evaluation, it should definitely be done during work hours. Businesses that make the mistake of sending B2B surveys outside of work hours will inevitably suffer from low responses.
Out of weekdays, some preliminary data from Checkmarket indicates that Monday might be the best day for a B2B survey. We’re not quite sure why that is, but that’s what surveys are for, folks: to give us results we didn’t quite expect but can learn and benefit from.
2. The Best Time to Send a B2B Survey
The timing for B2B surveys is different from B2C surveys. Ideally, you want to catch employees during lighter workloads, but at the same time, you need to send the surveys within work hours only. Here’s what we recommend.
You don’t want to send a B2B survey between 12 noon and 3pm. That’s the time that employees are either on a lunch break or busy with calls.
The best time slots for sending B2B surveys are either early morning, from 10am to 12noon, or later in the afternoon, from 3pm to 6pm. Data from multiple surveys indicates that these timings get more responses for B2B surveys.
Why the Best Time to Send a Survey Matters (a Lot)
When we send emails on a day to day basis to our colleagues, we’re not mindful of when we’re sending them. After all, our colleagues can reply at their own convenience.
That’s why thinking about the timing of survey emails doesn’t come naturally to us. To get the most responses on our surveys, that’s a shortcoming we must overcome.
1. First Time’s the Charm
The difference between your casual work email and a survey email is that your recipient will probably address the former, sooner or later. On the other hand, with a survey email, if they don’t engage with it the first time they see it, chances are slim that they will ever bother again.
That’s why it’s important to strike at the right moment. To conduct a survey that’s effective in getting the insights you seek, you need to know the best time to send a survey
2. Better Responses at a Better Time
On a hassled Friday afternoon, Susan is not in the mindspace to be filling out a survey. If she does it, she will probably do it passively and without giving it much thought.
Obviously, the quality of responses will suffer if most of your recipients are tired or hassled. That’s why the best time to send a survey is when respondents are mentally free and have some time on their hands.
3. More Satisfaction, Less Frustration
Have you ever been frustrated as a customer by survey emails? The worst kind are when they call you, intruding on your time whenever they wish to. That’s why SurveySparrow’s non-intrusive online surveys are the ideal solution.
Sending these surveys out at the right time will ensure that your customers aren’t frustrated. Nothing good comes from making your customers suffer. That is why the best time to send a survey is something worth thinking about.
How To Get More Responses On Your Survey
The motivation behind deciding the best time to send a survey in 2023 is to get more responses. But while we’re here, there are also other best practices to keep in mind when trying to get more responses on your survey.
Let’s walk through some of them –
1) Keep It Short
While thinking about the best time to send a survey is great, you also want to focus on keeping your surveys short. In getting more responses, nothing is a bigger obstacle than length. Whether customers, employees or clients, nobody likes to fill out long surveys.
How do you keep your surveys short and to the point? It’s crucial to have a mission statement for your survey, and not detract from it. If you’re conducting an employee engagement survey, don’t ask questions about internal communication. Stay on point.
If you have a particularly lengthy survey, it might even be helpful to break it up into two more focused surveys, and send them out with enough time in between the two. That’ll give you better chances of getting the number of responses you need than just a lengthy survey.
2) Provide Incentives
When you’re sending a survey to a customer, you’re asking for their time. Why should they give you that time? This is the one question that keeps many customers away from answering your survey. That is why it’s so important to take this challenge head on.
Offering incentives like discounts – or even gamifying your survey – is a great way to compensate customers for their time. A customer will be a lot more likely to fill out your survey if they are genuinely benefited by your incentive.
3) Hook Recipients With Your Subject Line
A lot of surveys, whether B2C or B2B, attract respondents using email marketing. You can create beautiful email campaigns using SurveySparrow to lure your recipients into answering your survey. The online survey tool has end-to-end support for your surveying journey, from designing your survey to marketing it.
A great subject line is crucial for getting people to open your survey emails. Once they open it, they’re a lot more likely to just take a few seconds and get it done. Take some time to think of your subject line. After all, it’s the only thing most of your recipients are guaranteed to read.
Related: 20 Email Survey Subject Lines to Make Your Readers Click
4) Design It Well
Do you think the design of a survey matters when it comes to getting responses? We know you need to consider the best time to send a survey, but good survey design is actually great for getting more responses. At SurveySparrow, we’re able to get 40% more responses because of great design.
By designing it well, we don’t just mean aesthetics, even though those are important. We also mean thinking about the structure of your surveys, meaning which questions get asked first and how the survey proceeds from there. A bad structure can create abruptness, leading respondents to lose interest or get confused.
Wrapping Up
If you’re thinking about things like the best time to send a survey, you’re already well on your way to getting more responses. Following these best practices will ensure that you’re doing everything you can to get the most responses on your survey.
At SurveySparrow, we’re committed to getting you the best responses possible that can give you useful insights to improve your business. Our survey design and marketing tool guides you at every step towards making the best decisions for conducting a successful survey. We also have various templates for all your survey needs, from customer satisfaction feedback to NPS surveys.
When you’re sending out a survey next, make sure to use scheduled surveys. By following the best time to send a survey, you’ll make your recipients feel less frustrated and more willing to respond. To conduct a successful survey and get plenty of responses, that’s exactly what you’ll need. To get started, check out this quick guide on how to send automated emails.
