Survey Response Rates: What Is a Good Response Rate and How to Raise It

Every survey starts with the same worry: will enough people answer? A low response rate means fewer data points, and, more importantly, it can mean the people who answered are not like the people who didn't.

This guide explains how to calculate your response rate, what independent research says about typical rates, where the figures quoted on many websites come from, how to judge your own number, and what actually gets more people to respond.

What is a survey response rate?

A survey response rate is the percentage of people who completed your survey out of everyone you successfully invited:

Worked example. You email a customer survey to 2,000 people. 100 emails bounce, so 1,900 invitations were delivered. 380 people open the survey and 304 finish it.

Decide upfront whether partially completed surveys count as responses, and keep that rule the same every time, otherwise your rates won't be comparable.

Response rate vs completion rate

The two numbers diagnose different problems:

• A low response rate means people don't start. The invitation, the timing, the channel or the relationship is the issue.
• A low completion rate means people start and give up. The survey itself is the issue: too long, confusing, not mobile-friendly, or asking for something people don't want to share.

Look at both. A survey with a modest response rate but a high completion rate usually needs a better invitation, not a shorter questionnaire.

What independent research says about average response rates

Most response rate figures on the web come from survey software vendors. Peer-reviewed studies are a more reliable reference, as long as you remember they describe research surveys, not customer feedback:

• Online surveys in published research: 44.1% on average. A 2022 meta-analysis by Wu, Zhao and Fils-Aime examined 1,071 online survey response rates reported in education-related research. Sending a survey to more people did not raise the response rate; surveying a clearly defined population did. Incentives showed no significant effect, while contacting people before the survey, combining online surveys with other survey modes and phone reminders were associated with higher rates.
• Organizational research: average rates rising to 68% by 2020. Holtom, Baruch, Aguinis and Ballinger (2022) analyzed 1,014 surveys reported in 703 articles across 17 management journals from 2010 to 2020. Average response rates rose from 48% in 2005 to 53% in 2010, 56% in 2015 and 68% in 2020.
• People vs organizations. An earlier study by Baruch and Holtom (2008) found an average of 52.7% for surveys of individuals and 35.7% for surveys aimed at organizations, such as one respondent answering on behalf of a company.
• Telephone polls: down to 6%. Response rates to Pew Research Center's telephone surveys held steady at around 9% for several years, then fell to 7% in 2017 and 6% in 2018. Pew linked the drop to the surge in automated telemarketing calls and to phones that flag or block unknown callers.

Two lessons follow. Research surveys of a defined group that knows and trusts the researcher can reach high response rates. Cold, unsolicited requests, like phone polls of the general public, get very few.

The "10–15% external, 30–40% internal" figure

Many blog posts state that external surveys, such as those sent to customers, average 10–15%, while internal surveys, such as those sent to employees, average 30–40%. The figure is usually linked to an article by SurveyGizmo, the survey company now called Alchemer. That article is no longer online, and we could not find the data or method behind the numbers.

It is still a useful reminder of a real pattern: people who belong to your organization answer more readily than customers who owe you nothing. Treat it as a rule of thumb, not as a benchmark to report against.

What is a good survey response rate?

A good response rate is one that is high enough for the decision you need to make and, just as important, not biased toward one kind of respondent. Instead of chasing an industry number, judge your rate in context:

Watch for non-response bias: if only your happiest or angriest customers answer, even a large number of responses can mislead. Compare respondents with your whole audience on what you know (segment, region, purchase history) and check whether the mix looks similar.

What about NPS survey response rates?

Net Promoter Score surveys follow the same rules. Relationship NPS surveys sent by email to a whole customer base tend to get fewer answers than transactional surveys asked right after an interaction, and B2B surveys sent to a known contact often do better than surveys sent to large consumer lists. Vendor benchmarks for NPS response rates vary widely and rarely explain how they were measured, so compare each NPS wave with the previous one.

A low NPS response rate is also a signal in itself: customers who no longer bother to answer may be drifting away. Track who stops responding, not only the score. If you need to calculate the score itself, use our NPS calculator.

How to increase your survey response rate

• Ask at the right moment. Right after a purchase, a delivery, a support case or an event, while the experience is fresh.
• Use the channel people are already in. A question on the site or in the app, in the chat, on a tablet at the counter, or a short phone call often works better than one more email.
• Keep it short. Ask only what you will use. For a single interaction, one rating question and one open question are often enough.
• Say how long it takes, and keep that promise.
• Make it easy on a phone. Large buttons and one question per screen for longer surveys.
• Write a clear invitation. Say who is asking, why, and what will change because of the answers. Personal, plain language beats a marketing template.
• Survey a defined group, not everyone you have an address for. Research suggests that a well-defined population raises response rates more than a larger list does.
• Tell people in advance and send one reminder. Pre-notice and reminders are among the methods linked to higher response rates in published research.
• Don't over-survey. Limit how often the same person is asked.
• Close the loop. Share what you changed because of past feedback. People answer again when they see their answers mattered.
• Use incentives carefully. Their effect is mixed in research, and rewards can attract answers from people who only want the reward.

For a full walkthrough of question types, wording and survey length, see our guide on how to create a survey.

Where Sonic Survey fits

Sonic Survey helps you ask where your customers already are:

• On your site or in your app, added with one line of code.
• By link or QR code, for receipts, packaging, emails and signs.
• On a tablet in kiosk mode at the counter or exit, resetting itself for the next person. See our guide to kiosk surveys.
• By voice, with an AI agent that asks your survey by phone or as a voice assistant on your site. See what a voicebot is.

Every answer, written or spoken, is analysed for sentiment, topics and root causes, so the answers you get turn into decisions.

Sources

• Wu, M.-J., Zhao, K., & Fils-Aime, F. (2022). Response rates of online surveys in published research: A meta-analysis. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 7, 100206.
• Holtom, B., Baruch, Y., Aguinis, H., & Ballinger, G. A. (2022). Survey response rates: Trends and a validity assessment framework. Human Relations, 75(8), 1560–1584.
• Baruch, Y., & Holtom, B. C. (2008). Survey response rate levels and trends in organizational research. Human Relations, 61(8), 1139–1160.
• Pew Research Center (2019). Response rates in telephone surveys have resumed their decline.