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A guide to response rates

What is a response rate?

The percentage of people in your organisation who have responded to your survey.

How does The Happiness Index platform show response rates?

THI shows response rates by:

  • Email: The response rate for people who were invited by email.
  • SMS: The response rate for people who were invited by text message.
  • Combined: The response rate for people who were invited by email or text message.
  • Humans: The response rate is calculated by dividing the number of survey responses by the total number of Humans an organisation has on their The Happiness Index platform. This option is used when organisations are using a generic link for survey and have not sent out invites. 

What information is shown on the Response Analysis tab?

For Emails, SMS and Combined

  • Emails Sent: In the filter period, the number of voters who received invitations via email (if a voter has received multiple invitations, this is counted as one email).
  • Responses: In the filter period, the number of survey responses, both complete or incomplete.
  • Incomplete Responses: In the filter period, the number of Responses that were started but not finished.
  • Response Rate: In the filter period, the number of Responses as a percentage of the number of Emails Sent.
  • Completion Rate: In the filter period, the number of complete Responses as a percent of the number of complete or incomplete Responses.
  • Drop Out Rate: In the filter period, the number of incomplete Responses as a percent of the number of complete or incomplete Responses.

For Humans

  • All Humans: The number of voters currently active in the platform, this does not respond to date filters and will show current only. 
  • Responses: As above.
  • Incomplete Responses: As above.
  • Response Rate: In the filter period, the number of Responses as a percentage of the number of Humans currently active in the platform. 
  • Completion Rate: As above.
  • Drop Out Rate: As above.

Frequently asked questions

How should I look at response rates?

The response rates work when you look at them during the date range of a survey. Use the date filters to analyse the response rates for each survey period. 

This is the suggested way to look at response rates as the count of Emails Sent counts the unique number of email addresses, instead of the total number of emails sent. One of the reasons for this is it ensures that multiple reminder invites are not counted in the response rate. 

When looking by All Humans, why might my response rate be greater than 100%?

A response rate may be greater than 100% when looking by All Humans, as the calculator for All Humans is the number of Humans currently active in the platform. If you have deactivated or removed people who have completed the survey, their responses will be captured but their profiles won’t be. In addition, if a voter has completed the survey multiple times over the life of the survey their profile will be counted once but their responses will be counted multiple times.

Unlike email, where we have an audit of when a profile was invited, we don’t store a profile being deactivated in the same way, thus it can’t use the date like the invite log can. 

Can I edit my response rate, as I want to look at responses compared to a different number?

You cannot change the data in the platform, but you can extract the data into a Google Sheets file to edit and recalculate. This covers both summary response rates and response rates by available filters. 

How can I improve my response rates?

For more information about how to improve your response rates, please click here to read our long read article.

How many responses do I need for my survey results to be statistically relevant?

For more information about how many responses you need for your survey results to be statistically relevant, please click here and you'll be redirected a an article specifically focused on this.