When Should You Send Out Your Surveys?

Humans are fickle creatures. No matter what questions you ask on your surveys or what incentives you offer us to complete them, whether or not we’ll fill them out still is mainly based on our mood at the moment we see the survey. Unfortunately, the things that are outside of your control influence our mood from the weather to someone’s to-do list and even how we slept last night.

However, one influential factor you have some control over is when we get the survey. We examined our internal dashboard – we launch hundreds of surveys each month with over 140 sample partners. Survey Monkey also did an internal study among all of their surveys.

AND THE WINNER IS…MONDAY!
We also looked at the differences in responses from customer surveys vs. internal surveys. There were some differences, but one thing remained the same: they got the most number of responses from surveys sent out on Mondays (10% more responses than average for customer surveys and 13% more than average for internal surveys).

CUSTOMER SURVEYS
For customer surveys, those sent out on Tuesdays also performed well with 6% more responses than average, but after that, it was all downhill. Wednesday and Thursday received 3% below average and 1% below average responses respectively, and the number of responses received from surveys sent out on Fridays was a whopping 13% below average.

INTERNAL SURVEYS
For internal surveys, Thursdays turned out to be the worst day to send out surveys, with 6% fewer responses than average. Surveys sent out on Tuesdays and Wednesdays both received 4% fewer responses than average, while Friday almost set the bar for the average number of responses (it was 1% more responses than average).

SO WHAT?
Market researchers tend to rush to get surveys in field before the weekend – scrambling to finalize questionnaires and put final edits in programs. This data may be additional support to launch on Monday instead of the end of the week rush – this could improve quality as well as response rates.

No matter what kind of survey you’re sending out, send them as early in the week as possible. Most surveys launch on Thursday or Friday, so you can beat the rush, avoid competing with other surveys, have a better response time and better results.

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR RESULTS.
While this information may be a good start, there are always differences between industries and target audiences. Always keep track of your survey responses to see which days of the week and what times of day are most effective in getting responses from your target audience.