Types of survey communication
When you create a survey, you'll get access to a series of communications that support survey-taking. You'll find these in Step 6 of the create survey flow, organised into three tabs.
Participants tab. The messages people see when they take your survey:
- Welcome message
- Thank you message
- Email invitation
- SMS invitation
- Passcode invitation
- Kiosk welcome message
- Reminder message
- SMS reminder
- Survey extension message
Sending and schedule tab. Your survey dates, reminder schedule, participant contact address, sender address and completion notification.
Report viewers tab. The email that invites people to view your survey's results.
Let's learn more about each one.
Welcome message
This message is shown before the participant starts the survey. You can personalise it to provide useful background information about the survey. This is usually written by the CEO, GM, or Senior Leadership Team.
The introduction message should not be too long.
We recommend you include:
- the purpose of the survey
- time frames (start/end dates and time)
- when results will be shared
- commitment to retesting and continual improvement
- personal message encouraging staff to take part
A well-written introduction will encourage participation. If you have your logo set under Account settings, this will also appear on your survey welcome page.
💡Did you know? You can add images and videos to your survey's Welcome and Thank you page, to add visual context, set the tone, or share important messages in a more dynamic way!
Thank you message
The Thank you message appears when the participant submits their survey. You can customise this.
Email and SMS invitation
An email or SMS invitation is how your participants will access their survey.
Email invitation
The email invitation will include a unique link to the survey. You can personalise the message before the link. We recommend using this space as an opportunity to remind participants why you're asking for their feedback and what impact their feedback will have.
Some content is added to the bottom of your invitation automatically, including:
- the link to the survey
- the closing date and time (if applicable)
- a reminder not to share their survey link, and
- unsubscribe details, where these are required.
You can see exactly how this looks. Open the message card and expand the preview beneath the editor. It shows the email as your participants will receive it, with your survey's real links in place, so you can check you aren't repeating something that's already there.
The preview follows the language tab you're viewing, so you can check each translation, and it's available on reminder messages as well as invitations.
💡Did you know?
You can control how quickly survey invitation emails go out. By default, AskYourTeam sends invitations in batches of 99 with no pause between batches, but you can change the batch size and add a delay between batches on the account page.
This is useful if your organisation's email gateway flags or rejects large bursts of email from external senders. Slowing the send rate can improve delivery without changing anything about the survey itself.
For example, a batch size of 99 and a delay of 20 minutes sends the first 99 invites immediately, then schedules each later batch 20 minutes apart.
SMS invitation
The SMS invitation will include a unique link to the survey. The SMS message cannot be edited. Your organisation name, survey name and participant URLs will be automatically populated within the existing message.
Passcode message
If you have participants who will be taking the survey using a passcode, you can generate a passcode slip that contains:
- Instructions on how to take the survey
- their passcode, and
- a message about the survey (similar to the email invitation).
You are able to personalise the passcode slip message by editing this field. To see an example of the passcode slip, take a look at our guide on how to export passcodes.
Reminders
If you'd like to send automated reminders to participants who haven't completed the survey yet, turn reminders on in Step 6.
You'll then be able to:
- set your reminder dates and times on the Sending and schedule tab, and
- personalise the reminder message on the Participants tab.
Your reminder message has the same formatting options as your invitation, and you can preview the content that's added below it in the same way.
If your participants receive their invitation by SMS, you can also review the SMS reminder. Like the SMS invitation, its wording is set automatically and can't be edited.
To send an additional reminder outside your schedule, go to Participant Tracking and select Send Reminders. This sends another reminder email to anyone who hasn't yet completed the survey.
Survey extension message
If you extend your survey's closing date, this message lets participants know they still have time to respond.
You can personalise it, and it's available as both an email and an SMS. For Leadership Effectiveness and demographic review surveys, you can write a different extension message for each audience.
Report viewer invitation
This is the email sent to people you give access to your survey's reports, whether you grant that access individually or in bulk.
You can edit both the subject line and the body, so leaders receive a message in your organisation's own words rather than a standard one.
💡 You don't need to set this up before publishing. You can write it now, or at any time after your survey becomes active.
Kiosk welcome message
If your survey uses kiosk mode, this is the message shown on the kiosk screen before someone begins. It's separate from your standard Welcome message, so you can write something suited to a shared device in a public space.
FAQs
Can I add links to my survey communications?
It depends on the type of link:
- Survey link: This is automatically added to the Welcome page, SMS invitation, email invitation and reminder.
- Text link: (e.g. a link to more information about the survey topic) You can add these to the survey's Welcome and Thank You pages, except in kiosk mode. You can also add them to your email invitation, reminder, survey extension and report viewer invitation, using the link button in the editor toolbar.
You cannot add text links to the SMS invitation or SMS reminder, as their wording is set automatically.
How do I save my survey communications?
When you have finished writing, select Save changes at the bottom of the message card. The button shows Saving while your change is being saved, and the editor is locked for that moment so nothing you type gets lost.
Your message is not saved by clicking away from the editor, so use the Save changes button before moving on to another card.
Each message card also shows who last edited it and when, so you can see at a glance whether a message has been reviewed.