Overview

Good Surveys start with a clear decision you want to make. Before creating a Survey, decide what you need to learn, who should answer, and what your team will do with the responses.

Use Surveys when the question is best asked inside your product, close to the moment the customer is experiencing the thing you want feedback on.

Define the goal before writing questions

Start by writing the goal in one sentence. For example:

• Learn why customers are not activating a specific feature

• Measure satisfaction after a key workflow

• Collect feedback from customers who just used a new page

• Understand which product area a customer wants next

If the goal is not clear, the Survey will usually become too broad. Ask only for information your team can review and act on. If you do not know how you will use an answer, remove that question.

Ask in the right context

Surveys work best when the question matches what the customer is doing right now. If you want feedback on a feature, trigger the Survey on that feature's page. If you want onboarding feedback, show it after the customer has had enough time to experience the setup flow.

Use the Survey's rules to control when it appears:

• Current page URL - show the Survey on the most relevant page

• Time on page (seconds) - wait until the customer has had time to understand the page

• CSS selector - show the Survey only when a specific page element is present

• Audience rules - limit the Survey to the customer segment that can answer the question well

For more on configuring audience and trigger rules, see Targeting & triggering surveys.

Keep the Survey short

Short Surveys are easier to answer and easier to analyze. Aim for one to three focused questions unless you have a strong reason to ask more.

Use each page for a specific job:

• Use a rating question when you need a score, such as NPS or satisfaction

• Use multiple choice when you need structured answers you can compare

• Use text when you need open feedback in the customer's own words

• Use a link page only when the next best action is to send the customer somewhere else

Avoid combining several topics in one Survey. If you need feedback on multiple workflows, create separate Surveys with separate audiences and triggers.

Choose the right audience, frequency, and schedule

Survey messages use dynamic audiences, so Featurebase keeps checking who matches your audience and rules while the Survey is active.

Before setting the Survey live, check:

• Audience - choose the customer types and attributes that match your goal

• Trigger - choose where and when the Survey can appear in your product

• Frequency - decide whether it should send once, run on a recurring schedule, or run every time someone matches, with limits and dismissal behavior controlling repeated exposure

• Start sending - choose whether the Survey starts immediately or on a custom date

• Stop sending - set a stop date when the Survey is tied to a campaign, launch, or research window

• When to send - restrict delivery to office hours, outside office hours, custom times, or any time

Use Preview audience to check whether the audience is too broad, too narrow, or empty before you set the Survey live.

Avoid over-surveying

Too many Surveys can reduce response quality and cause customers to ignore future messages. Use a narrow audience, a clear stop condition, and enough spacing between repeat Surveys.

For ongoing check-ins, start with a conservative cadence, such as monthly, and adjust only if the feedback remains useful. For one-time research, stop the Survey once you have enough responses to make the decision.

Use multi-step surveys carefully

Conditional multi-step surveys help you ask better follow-up questions, but too many steps make Surveys harder to maintain and harder to analyze.

Use branching when a response should clearly change the next question. For example, send low ratings to a follow-up text question, or end the Survey when the customer selects an answer that does not need more detail.

Keep every branch tied to the original goal. Make sure each page has a sensible default action, so customers who do not match a branch still move to the right next page or end the Survey.

Review and export responses

Check Survey responses while the Survey is running, not only after it ends, so you can spot unclear questions, empty audiences, or feedback that needs a faster follow-up.

In Survey results, you can review individual responses, response counts, displayed and dismissed counts, rating or NPS summaries, multiple-choice distributions, and responses by question or timeframe.

Export responses as a CSV when you need to analyze answers outside Featurebase or share the raw data with your team.

Localize when needed

If your product has customers in multiple languages, write the Survey in the languages those customers use. A translated Survey usually gets clearer answers than asking customers to respond in a language they do not normally use.

Keep translated Surveys short too. Localization should make the Survey easier to answer, not add extra explanation.