Example polls
Paste any of these into the message box in Slack.
Survey (3 questions). One required question and two optional ones.
/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
Premium: surveys (several questions), closing automatically
AnonymousClose automatically: after 3 days
Choice poll. A single question that replaces a whole survey about meetings.
/poll "Should we keep the Friday demo?" "Keep it" "Make it every two weeks" "Drop it" limit 1 anonymous close after 1 day
Premium: vote limits, closing automatically
AnonymousLimit votes: 1 per personClose automatically: after 1 day
The signs
- Falling response rates 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
optionalto any question people can skip. - Replace ad-hoc surveys with one regular pulse. A 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.
Questions
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?
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?
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
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
When an annual engagement survey is too slow to catch problems and you want a light, regular read on how the team is doing.