---
title: "What is survey fatigue? Signs, causes and fixes"
url: "https://simplepoll.rocks/glossary/survey-fatigue/"
description: "Survey fatigue is when people are asked for feedback so often, or at such length, that they stop answering or answer carelessly. How to spot it and avoid it."
---

# What is survey fatigue?

**Survey fatigue**: Survey fatigue is when people are asked for feedback so often, or at such length, that they stop answering or start answering carelessly.

Also known as: poll fatigue, respondent fatigue.

It shows up in two places: fewer people answer, and the people who do answer put in less
effort. Both make your results worse without any warning on the page.

## Example polls

Paste any of these into the message box in Slack.

```text
/poll "Monthly check-in" "Three questions. The last two are optional." anonymous close after 3 days --- "How was this month overall?" scale --- "What should we stop doing?" short text optional --- "What should we keep?" short text optional
```

One required question and two optional ones. *Premium: surveys (several questions), closing automatically.*

```text
/poll "Should we keep the Friday demo?" "Keep it" "Make it every two weeks" "Drop it" limit 1 anonymous close after 1 day
```

A single question that replaces a whole survey about meetings. *Premium: vote limits, closing automatically.*

## The signs

- **Falling [response rates](https://simplepoll.rocks/glossary/response-rate/)** on the same audience.
- **More middle answers**: everything rated 3, everything "About right".
- **The same answer down the page** on every scale question.
- **Empty or one-word open answers** where you used to get sentences.

## The causes

- **Too many asks**: several teams each sending their own survey in the same week.
- **Too long**: twelve questions where three would do.
- **Nothing changes**: people stop answering when they never see what happened to the last
  round. This is the big one.

## How to avoid it in Slack

- **Ask less.** A single poll often does the job of a survey. A survey can hold 20 questions;
  that's a ceiling, not a target.
- **Make extra questions optional.** In a survey (Premium), add `optional` to any question
  people can skip.
- **Replace ad-hoc surveys with one regular pulse.** A [pulse survey](https://simplepoll.rocks/glossary/pulse-survey/)
  on a fixed cadence beats five surprise surveys.
- **Give it an end.** `close after` (Premium) makes the ask finite.
- **Close the loop.** Post the result and one thing you're changing before you ask again.
- **Don't post the same poll twice.** Remind instead.

## FAQ

### How often is too often?

When you can't act on one round before the next arrives. If the results haven't changed
anything yet, you're asking too often.

### Do anonymous polls help with survey fatigue?

They help people answer honestly. They don't fix the volume of asks or the lack of
follow-through.

## Related

- [What is a pulse survey?](https://simplepoll.rocks/glossary/pulse-survey/): A pulse survey is a short survey, usually one to five questions, sent to the same group on a regular schedule so you can see how things change over time. Common topics are workload, morale and engagement.
- [What is response rate?](https://simplepoll.rocks/glossary/response-rate/): Response rate is the share of people you asked who actually answered: the number of respondents divided by the number of people invited, times 100.
- [How to create a survey in Slack](https://simplepoll.rocks/guides/how-to-create-a-survey-in-slack/): A survey in Simple Poll is one Slack message with several questions behind it. People click the survey's Open button, answer in a pop-up without leaving Slack, and you get the results in the same place. Surveys are a Premium feature, with up to 20 questions each.
- [Weekly pulse survey for Slack](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/weekly-pulse-survey/): When an annual engagement survey is too slow to catch problems and you want a light, regular read on how the team is doing.

## Sources

- [What is a multi question poll?](https://help.simplepoll.rocks/article/129-what-is-a-multi-question-poll)

---

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