What is the average survey response rate?
The short answer? 33%.
The long answer is a bit more nuanced though.
Since there is no agreed-upon minimum acceptable response rate, it will largely depend on how you go about creating, distributing, and collecting your survey.
Nevertheless, over the years a lot of studies have been done on what the average response rate of a survey should be and which parameters have an influence on it. We’ve combined all this information into one infographic containing the most recent data.
But before we dive into the numbers, it’s important to have a clear understanding of what exactly the response rate is.
In this post:
2021 benchmark for average survey response
What Is a Response Rate and How Do You Calculate it?
Importance of Response Rate in Surveys
Average Response Rate Infographic
5 Factors That Impact Response Rate
Remarks On Response Rate
What is Survey Completion Rate and How Do You Calculate it?
Response Rate Vs. Completion Rate
What is a response rate?
In survey research, the response rate is the number of people who answered the survey divided by the number of people you sent the survey to (the sample), then multiply that number by 100, since it is usually expressed in the form of a percentage.
How do you calculate the response rate?
Response Rate = (# of people who answered the survey / # of people you sent the survey to) X 100
If you sent a survey to 500 people, and 200 of them fill it out, your response rate would be 40%, since (200/500) x 100 = 40%
Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? So, why is the response rate so important?
Importance of response rate in surveys
A low response rate can give rise to sampling bias if the nonresponse is unequal among the participants regarding the outcome.
For example:
If you select a sample of 1000 managers in a field and ask them about their workload, the managers with a high workload may not answer the survey because they do not have enough time to answer it, and/or those with a low workload may decline to respond out of fear that their supervisors or colleagues will perceive them as surplus employees.
Therefore, non-response bias may make the measured value for the workload too low, too high, or, if they balance each other out, “right for the wrong reasons.”
A survey’s response rate has always been viewed as an important indicator of survey quality. However, recent studies have shown that surveys with lower response rates (near 20%) had more accurate measurements compared to surveys with higher response rates (near 60 or 70%). Nevertheless, in spite of these recent research studies, a higher response rate is preferable because the missing data is not random. A high response rate (>80%) from a small, random sample is preferable to a low response rate from a large sample.
Now we’ve got that out of the way, it’s time to move on to the main course of this article.
Average response rate infographic
In this infographic, you can find the average survey response rates for the most used survey methods based on the most recent data.
![What’s the average survey response rate? [2021 benchmark] | Pointerpro (1)](https://i0.wp.com/pointerpro.com/wp-content/uploads/Voorstel_C2-1024x850-1.png "What’s the average survey response rate? [2021 benchmark] | Pointerpro (1)")
The most effective survey method is still the in-person survey with 57%. In-person surveys can be held at the moment when the survey is most relevant and allows for the most personalized experience.
The mail survey comes second with 50%. As people are living in an increasing digitalized world, receiving an invitation via real post gives a more premium experience. The downside of this survey method is the higher price.
Third on the list is the email survey, with an average response rate of 30%. People are receiving more spam emails every day and, unfortunately, spam filters are extremely hard on the word survey.
TIP: Don’t use the word survey in your email subject line to increase your survey response rate by 10%. Check out our 34 other tips to improve your survey response rate.
Another trick is to add your survey to a confirmation or after service/purchase email, this guarantees your survey is sent out at a relevant timing.
Next, we have the web or online survey. As mentioned earlier it is often hard to get an accurate view on the survey invitations needed to accurately calculate the survey response rate.
Second to last we have the phone survey. The response rate for telephone survey has been declining the past 2 decades. And this trend is not changing anytime soon. Still, studies have shown that despite low response rates, telephone surveys are able to produce accurate results.
Finally, there’s the in-app survey. This is a rather new survey method and there’s not a lot of data published on this topic. Similar to the online survey it is proven difficult to get an accurate definition of who is invited to the survey and who is not.
When we accumulate all this data into one number, we find an average survey response rate of 33%.
Additional findings
- Internal surveys (employees) receive a 20% higher response rate compared to external surveys (customers or users).
- Survey response rate is directly correlated to survey length or duration, we’ve seen on average a 17% drop in response rate when a survey has more than 12 questions or takes longer than 5 minutes to complete.
- A reminder to complete your survey between 3 to 7 days after the invitation will boost response rate by up to 14% with just a single reminder. If you’re concerned people will get upset for sending them a reminder survey, we’ve found that only a 0.5% will actually unsubscribe.
- The B2C response rate is on average 12% lower than the B2B survey response rate.
5 factors that impact response rate
There are 5 main parameters that impact your questionnaire response rate:
1. Survey purpose
Before you make up any kind of survey, you have to know what you want to achieve. It’s very important to have a clear goal in mind. Once you have this figured it will be a lot easier to convince people to take your survey.
Opening with “Can I ask you a few quick questions?” is too vague and will decrease your survey response rate with 11% percent compared to a specific survey introduction “In order to improve our customer service, we would like to ask you 5 quick questions”
2. Survey experience
The survey has to look appealing and should ideally attract the attention of your target audience, both in style as in language. You need to make sure everything is clear, easy to read and to fill in. Most survey makers on the market provide ready-to-use survey templates, so you don’t have to start from scratch when it comes to designing the survey and crafting the questions.
For online surveys, it’s important to make your survey responsive and you should limit the number of clicks needed to complete the survey.
Try to personalize the survey as well. Dirk Heerwegh’s 2005 study into personalized invites for online surveys (e.g. ‘Dear John’ as opposed to ‘Dear Customer’) concluded that personalized survey invites increased response rates by 7.8%. In addition, respondents that received these invites were 2.6% less likely to drop off before completing all survey questions.
I’ve already mentioned the importance of language: Try to get into the mindset of your customer and make questions based on that. Or follow our tips to sound more human in your survey. Make sure you use a variety of question types such as multiple choice, rating, Likert scale, etc. Each question type has its strengths.
3. Survey length
People get distracted very fast, so you should only ask questions you NEED to know.
As mentioned before having a survey with more than 12 questions or that takes longer than 5 minutes to complete see a 15% drop in response rate. The drop is even bigger (up to 40%) when a survey takes longer than 10 minutes to complete.
Tell your respondents how long it will take to complete the survey before they start. And make sure you don’t exceed that timeframe.
4. Survey audience
A common mistake is sending the same survey to different audiences and expecting the same response rate.
When you’re aiming at a B2C audience, you can expect a response rate that’s 12% lower than a B2B audience. Creating an internal survey will have a 20% higher response rate compared to an external survey.
5. Survey incentives
People don’t like to do stuff for free anymore. They need motivation or incentive to get them going. For example, some people prefer to take surveys for money. Studies have shown that having an incentive can increase your response with 10 to 15% depending on the quality and attractiveness of the incentive to your target audience.
The consensus amongst many research experts is that ‘useful, relevant information’ is the most effective form of incentive to business audiences. For example, the information they provide you will help you improve certain aspects of your products or services – in turn resulting in a better experience for your customers.
This is called an intrinsic reward.
It’s better to focus on informing respondents about the intrinsic rewards of completing a survey as respondents will understand that it’s in their best interest to answer the survey questions as honestly and completely as possible.
You might also decide to offer extrinsic rewards, such as coupons, discounts, and other deals, to customers who take the time to respond to your survey. Coupon promotion is a time-tested strategy when it comes to getting survey results. Needless to say, this might make some customers more likely to complete the survey, the downside to providing extrinsic rewards is that some individuals might complete the survey just to receive their reward.
Those who approach the survey with this mindset may or may not actually take the process seriously, meaning you might end up with a bunch of invalid or otherwise unusable responses.
You can avoid such instances by providing an incentive that, while extrinsic in nature, isn’t of any extreme value.
This statement is also supported by a study conducted by e-Rewards Market Research, two random sample selections utilized: 4,000 people were invited to complete the survey for entry into a sweepstake drawing of $2,500, and another 4,000 people were invited to complete the survey for $2.00 in cash. Both groups launched and closed on the same day of the week and the same time of the day. It was a one-minute survey about books and music.
The results: Within 7 days after sending the invite, response rates were:
- 19.3% for $2 cash ‘pay all’ sample.
- 12.2% for $2500 sweepstake sample.
This proves that people prefer to complete a survey when they are certain they’ll receive something instead of the slim chance of winning a big prize.
Say you’re surveying customers who bought something on an e-commerce store like Amazon, Etsy, or eBay. Using a split testing tool such as PickFu, you can ask consumers what kind or how much of an incentive would motivate them to fill out a survey. Their feedback can help you figure out an incentive amount.
Remarks on response rate
For in-person or phone surveys it is pretty straightforward to define who is invited to take the survey: How many people did you ask or call to participate?
For email surveys, it gets a bit trickier.
Do you count all the emails you sent out? With or without bounced emails? Or do you count only those who opened the email? Depending on which one you take you can significantly inflate your response rate.
When you use a web survey, it gets even harder.
It is difficult to define the number of invitations for an embedded survey on a webpage since a web visitor is only presented the survey, but technically not invited. Counting everyone who visited this page as invited can lead to very low response rates.
So what can you do in this case?
You could calculate the survey completion rate instead of the survey response rate.
What is survey completion rate?
The survey completion rate is calculated by dividing the number of surveys filled out with the number of surveys started by respondents. So only those respondents who entered and completed the survey will be included in this statistic.
How do you calculate completion rate?
If 400 people start the survey, and 200 of them fill it out until the end, your completion rate would be 50%, since (200/400) x 100 = 50%
Especially for web or online survey, this is a better indicator of your survey’s performance as it can be easily measured.
Response rate vs. completion rate
It’s important to note the difference between response rate and completion rate. Response rate measures the number of people within your sample pool that responded to your survey. Completion rate measures the number of people who completed your survey out of the number of people who responded to your survey. In other words, the completion rate references only the people that interacted with your survey.
In conclusion
These response rate numbers will give you an indication whether or not your survey is performing out of the ordinary. But the averages within your country or industry can still vary greatly.
The best benchmark you can have is yourself. Use the data and response rates from previous surveys as an indication of whether any adjustments or improvements should be made.
FAQs
What's the average survey response rate 2021 benchmark? ›
Average survey response rates: Benchmarks from our 2021 data
The average survey response rates ranged from 6 to 16% among Delighted users, varying by survey channel.
Response rates approximating 60% for most research should be the goal of researchers and certainly are the expectation of the Editor and Associate Editors of the Journal. For survey research intended to represent all schools and colleges of pharmacy, a response rate of ≥ 80% is expected.
What is the average expected survey response rate? ›Customer satisfaction surveys and market research surveys often have response rates in the 10% – 30% range. Employee surveys typically have a response rate of 25% – 60%. Regardless of the type of survey you are conducting, you can have a major effect on the number of respondents who complete your survey.”
Is 30 respondents enough for a survey? ›Academia tells us that 30 seems to be an ideal sample size for the most comprehensive view of an issue, but studies with as few as 10 participants can yield fruitful and applicable results (recruiting excellence is even more important here!).
What is the average online survey response rate 2021? ›The short answer? 33%. The long answer is a bit more nuanced though. Since there is no agreed-upon minimum acceptable response rate, it will largely depend on how you go about creating, distributing, and collecting your survey.
What are benchmarks to surveyors? ›In surveying, a benchmark -- or bench mark or survey benchmark -- is a post or other permanent mark established at a known elevation that is used as the basis for measuring the elevation of other topographical points.
What is qualifying rate for surveys? ›Incidence Rate (also known as IR or Qualifying Rate/QR): The percent of respondents who make it through the screeners. This is just a measure of the number of people who qualify divided by the number of people who entered the survey. A high IR may be 70% or more, while a low IR is 30% or below.
What is the best response scale for survey? ›Taken as a whole this study suggests using of seven-point rating scale and if there is a need to have respondent to be directed on one side, then six-point scale is the most suitable.
What is the ideal employee survey response rate? ›Survey response rates tend to be higher in small and mid-size organizations. The benchmark average response rate for organizations with fewer than 500 employees is an impressive 85%. That is a high bar. We generally consider a response rate of 75% or more to be fine, and anything below 70% might be cause for concern.
What is a typical external survey response rate? ›It's also important to note that there can be a stark difference between the survey response for an internal and an external survey, with research indicating that average employee survey response rates typically run at around 30-40% in contrast to the average response rate for external surveys at 10-15%.
How do you calculate average survey response? ›
Survey response rates are calculated by dividing the total number of survey responses by the number of invitations sent to an audience (sample size). You then multiply that value by 100 for your response rate.
How do you deal with low response rate in a survey? ›- Highlight the point of the survey. ...
- Avoid survey fatigue. ...
- Ensure 100% anonymity. ...
- Walk in their shoes. ...
- Follow up!
As a very rough rule of thumb, 200 responses will provide fairly good survey accuracy under most assumptions and parameters of a survey project. 100 responses are probably needed even for marginally acceptable accuracy.
Is 50 respondents enough for a survey? ›A sample size consisting of 50-100 respondents will be sufficient for obtaining comprehensive behavioral insights during emotion measurement.
What is a sufficient sample size for a survey? ›Many statisticians concur that a sample size of 100 is the minimum you need for meaningful results. If your population is smaller than that, you should aim to survey all of the members. The same source states that the maximum number of respondents should be 10% of your population, but it should not exceed 1000.
What are acceptable response rates for surveys PDF? ›The average and also reasonably acceptable response rate is 60% +/-20 meaning that anything below 40% is not reasonably acceptable and would generate validity issues.
How many survey responses do you need for a dissertation? ›Whether 30 respondents is enough for a survey depends on the purpose of the survey and the type of data. If the survey is designed to collect qualitative data, like opinions, then 30 respondents could be enough depending on the size of the population being measured.
What is the current population survey response rate? ›The Census Bureau estimates that the unweighted combined supplement response rate was 65.0% in 2021, up from 61.1% in 2020.
What is acceptable benchmark? ›Appropriate: The benchmark is consistent with the manager's investment style or area of expertise. Measurable: The benchmark's return is readily calculable on a reasonably frequent basis. Unambiguous: The identities and weights of securities are clearly defined.
What are the 4 types of benchmarking? ›There are four main types of benchmarking: internal, external, performance, and practice.
What are the most popular benchmarks? ›
The most popular benchmarks for measuring the risk and return of a portfolio are market indexes such as the Russell 1000, Russell 2000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the S&P 500.
What is the gold standard for survey response rate? ›Survey Response Rate FAQs
A good survey response rate is one that is above average and, based on some industry data, that would be anything above 25% and subject to having enough total responses. However, you need to make sure your survey response rate is above the minimum acceptable survey response rate.
When a study's aim is to investigate a correlational relationship, however, we recommend sampling between 500 and 1,000 people. More participants in a study will always be better, but these numbers are a useful rule of thumb for researchers seeking to find out how many participants they need to sample.
What is a 1 to 5 rating scale for surveys? ›A 1 to 5 rating scale is a simple and effective way to rate the severity or magnitude of something. It typically goes from 1, the lowest rating, to 5, the highest rating. The 1 to 5 scale allows respondents to answer quickly and can be applied to a variety of things, such as pain, temperature, and brightness.
What is the most common survey scale? ›The most commonly used survey scale question is the Likert Scale, named after its inventor Rensis Likert. This response scale allows the survey participants how much they agree or disagree on a statement. Typically, Likert Scales use a 3-point or 5-point system, meaning there are three to five choices to pick from.
What is the 5-point rating scale? ›The 5-point Likert scale contains 5 response options that will consist of two extreme sides and a neutral option linked to the middle answer options. Examples of a 5-point rating scale for measuring satisfaction are: Very Satisfied, Satisfied, Neutral, Dissatisfied, and Very Dissatisfied.
What is a 5-point survey rating scale? ›A typical customer satisfaction survey uses an ordinal scale that allows users to rank their opinions. For example, a 5-point Likert scale asks customers to specify their levels of agreement with a statement, from high to low with one neutral option in the middle.
What is the best rating scale for employee satisfaction survey? ›Using likert scale is one of the best employee satisfaction survey examples we can give. The way likert scale questions are structured gives an understanding of what employees think about a topic without asking them to express themselves.
What is the most common employee survey? ›The most common types of employee surveys are employee engagement surveys, employee experience surveys, and effectiveness surveys. Using one or more of these surveys shows your employees that you want to hear from them. They can also help you make business decisions that will help you improve the employee experience.
Why is low response rate a problem? ›Studies with low response rates may produce prevalence estimates that are biased by selective non-response. That is, the chance that someone will participate in the survey may be related to the parameter being measured.
What is the completion rate of a survey? ›
What is completion rate? An online survey's completion rate is the number of people who have fully completed the survey divided by the number of people the survey has been sent to. If a person has started but not completed the survey, they will not increase your completion rate.
What is a good exit survey response rate? ›Response rates for exit surveys are typically lower than response rates for an engagement survey or other types of surveys. A response rate around 40% is common for exit surveys, though some organizations struggle to reach this and other organizations far exceed it.
What is the average score on a survey? ›A survey response rate of 50% or higher should be considered excellent in most circumstances. A high response rate is likely driven by high levels of motivation to complete the survey, or a strong personal relationship between business and customer. Survey response rates in the 5% to 30% range are far more typical.
How to interpret survey results? ›- Ask the right questions. ...
- For open-ended questions, start broad and drill down. ...
- Filter for key phrases. ...
- Display results visually. ...
- Use other data to understand (and sometimes discount) results. ...
- Interpret through the lens of your goals—both overarching and current.
The response rate can be calculated by dividing the number of completed survey responses by the number of people who viewed or started the survey. To convert this to a percentage, multiple your final number by 100.
Are survey response rates declining? ›Response rates to most federal surveys have been declining for many years. The decline accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic as household and business patterns were greatly interrupted.
What is low response rate? ›A low response rate can give rise to sampling bias if the nonresponse is unequal among the participants regarding exposure and/or outcome. Such bias is known as nonresponse bias. For many years, a survey's response rate was viewed as an important indicator of survey quality.
Why is 30 the minimum sample size? ›A sample size of 30 is fairly common across statistics. A sample size of 30 often increases the confidence interval of your population data set enough to warrant assertions against your findings.4 The higher your sample size, the more likely the sample will be representative of your population set.
How many questions is enough for a survey? ›A good questionnaire can be of 25 to 30 questions and should be able to be administered within 30 min to keep the interest and attention of the participants intact.
Should I use 1 to 10 or 1 to 5 in surveys? ›There's more variance in larger scales, which has made the Likert scale the most common survey scale. Dr. Rob Balon advises to “always use the 1–5 scale, with 5 being the positive end and 1 being the negative end. NEVER use 1 as the positive end.”
What is a statistically valid survey? ›
Statistical Validity. Statistical Validity indicates how much one can rely on the conclusions derived from a survey sample. The combinations of proper sampling methods, adequate sample sizes and unbiased data collection improve the reliability of survey results.
Is 40 respondents enough in research? ›If the research has a relational survey design, the sample size should not be less than 30. Causal-comparative and experimental studies require more than 50 samples. In survey research, 100 samples should be identified for each major sub-group in the population and between 20 to 50 samples for each minor sub-group.
Is 40 respondents enough? ›Yes, 30 respondents is enough for a survey and will most of the time allow you to gather enough information for accurate statistics. However, according to research, the optimal number of participants for a survey is 40.
What is a sufficient sample size? ›Sufficient sample size is the minimum number of participants required to identify a statistically significant difference if a difference truly exists.
Is sample of less than 30 considered as sufficiently large? ›By convention, we consider a sample size of 30 to be “sufficiently large.” When n < 30, the central limit theorem doesn't apply. The sampling distribution will follow a similar distribution to the population. Therefore, the sampling distribution will only be normal if the population is normal.
What percentage of a sample size is needed? ›For populations under 1,000, a minimum ratio of 30 percent (300 individuals) is advisable to ensure representativeness of the sample. For larger populations, such as a population of 10,000, a comparatively small minimum ratio of 10 percent (1,000) of individuals is required to ensure representativeness of the sample.
How many responses is good for a survey? ›As a very rough rule of thumb, 200 responses will provide fairly good survey accuracy under most assumptions and parameters of a survey project. 100 responses are probably needed even for marginally acceptable accuracy.
What is a good NPS survey response rate? ›Typically, B2B brands can expect a response rate of anywhere between 4.5% and 39.3%. The average NPS response rate was 12.4%. But you can aim for much higher than that. According to Bain & Company, the organization that invented NPS, B2C brands should really be aiming for response rates of 40% and above.
Is 50% an acceptable response rate for a survey? ›A survey response rate of 50% or higher should be considered excellent in most circumstances. A high response rate is likely driven by high levels of motivation to complete the survey, or a strong personal relationship between business and customer. Survey response rates in the 5% to 30% range are far more typical.
What is the best rating scale for a survey? ›There's more variance in larger scales, which has made the Likert scale the most common survey scale. Dr. Rob Balon advises to “always use the 1–5 scale, with 5 being the positive end and 1 being the negative end. NEVER use 1 as the positive end.”
Is 100 survey responses enough? ›
Most statisticians agree that the minimum sample size to get any kind of meaningful result is 100. If your population is less than 100 then you really need to survey all of them.
Is 50 respondents enough? ›50-100 respondents for emotion measurement
A sample size consisting of 50-100 respondents will be sufficient for obtaining comprehensive behavioral insights during emotion measurement.
Statistically Valid Sample Size Criteria
Probability or percentage: The percentage of people you expect to respond to your survey or campaign. Confidence: How confident you need to be that your data is accurate. Expressed as a percentage, the typical value is 95% or 0.95.
A low response rate can give rise to sampling bias if the nonresponse is unequal among the participants regarding exposure and/or outcome. Such bias is known as nonresponse bias. For many years, a survey's response rate was viewed as an important indicator of survey quality.