Even though Slack does not have many native survey features and relies on 3rd party applications to run customizable surveys, it’s still a very useful idea to run surveys directly in a messenger.
In this article, we’ll cover free tools to run surveys in Slack, the benefits of running Slack surveys, and best practices on how to make the most out of surveys when you run a remote team or an entire company.
Tune in!
If you want to run a survey in Slack right now, check out our quick easy guide to running Slack surveys.
Benefits Of Running Surveys In Slack
It’s Easy For Survey Organizers
Once you install the slack survey tool, you don’t have to spend hours trying to figure out how it works or how to set it up.
Survey Slack apps help you start a survey in a few seconds.
For example, with Geekbot Surveys you can kick off a poll right from Slack—type /geekbot in a channel where Geekbot is invited and follow the prompts (e.g., /geekbot What time should we meet?)”
You can also use Geekbot dashboard to launch a pre-made template to run a specific type of survey or customize it on the go. The whole process usually takes a few minutes at most, and does not require you to install additional software, register new accounts, or provide any payment details.
It’s Easy to Survey Participants
Instead of having to register a new account in third party services to even take part in a survey, Slack users can open their Slack channel and provide their survey responses there.
Your team already uses Slack for communication, so it’s active and they don’t need to switch elsewhere.
It Provokes Immediate and Fruitful Team Conversations
When you survey people using third-party services, the environment where the survey takes place and the environment where potential discussions follow are typically two different places.
For example, you can conduct a survey using Google Forms, and then discuss it in Slack or Zoom.
But the issue with that is that someone has to transfer survey results into talking points and maybe prepare a conversation plan.
When you conduct a survey directly in Slack, your team members can discuss survey results immediately, in the same window. They can either open a Slack thread under survey results, or even start a conversation in the same Slack channel.
The main benefit of such a setup is the depth of conversations. Everyone will have access to the same information, it will not be distorted by transferring it from other tools, especially if 3rd party survey tools do not have a proper export feature.
If you make the survey open (non anonymous), team members can even see who voted for what, and discuss their preferences in detail.
Note: Geekbot Slack surveys can be made anonymous!
It Can Be Automated
Have you ever had to create the same survey over and over again? Ironically, most survey services force you to do that by either not having pre-made survey templates in place or not supporting recurring surveys in any form.
But Slack is a great environment for recurring surveys!
For example, with Geekbot surveys you can create a survey that will take place every Friday, or every first day of the month, or quarterly surveys.
Each will have a distinct purpose. At the end of every week you can conduct recurring well-being surveys to understand how your team feels about the work and current challenges.
Scheduling monthly or quarterly surveys in Slack helps teams see how long-term changes affect morale and satisfaction while keeping participation consistent and avoiding survey fatigue.
Provides Organic Integration With Workflow
Sometimes your team faces challenging projects or circumstances that you can’t foresee. Conducting a quick survey in this case can help establish a plan of action or even simply learn how everyone feels.
If your team is busy with work already, then conducting a survey in Slack not only helps them to fill it without being too distracted from work, but also provide answers in the necessary context, as most of the project discussion likely took place in the same Slack channel.
It’s a Great Way to Track Core Team Characteristics
Some team characteristics, such as engagement, well-being, employee satisfaction, alignment, and transparency are paramount to long-term success of your team and company.
But many teams struggle to measure and track these, having no idea where to start.
Pro tip: Geekbot offers pre-made survey templates for each of these cases, and more.
This is where Slack surveys apps shine the most.
The regular, trackable and organic format of Slack surveys (for example, Geekbot surveys) help you create surveys that will gauge these important metrics automatically and accurately.
Unlike one-off surveys, regular Geekbot Slack surveys that are run over longer periods of time eliminate error and provide you with an easy way to track changes over time.
Easily Control Survey Visibility
Most survey apps induce restrained survey visibility simply because showing survey results to an extra party other than survey admin takes an extra step.
Slack survey apps such as Geekbot lets you control survey visibility on the go:
For example, you can publish survey results immediately to everyone in a designated Slack channel, show survey results only to those who took part in a survey, or limit access to survey results to the admin dashboard.
Once you set this up during the survey creation process, you don’t need to think about it until you decide to change the visibility of your survey later.
And you can still create anonymous surveys even in Slack!
Best Practices For Creating Surveys In Slack
Limit Each Survey To One Topic or Theme
With external survey applications, the common desire is to fit all questions you might have under the umbrella of one survey.
This is often done to save on costs (as many survey providers charge for the number of surveys, participants, or responses).
You have much more flexibility in Slack surveys.
For example, in Geekbot you can create as many surveys as possible without any added cost.
So, why is creating separate surveys important?
First, because long surveys are a chore for everyone. No one has time to go through a 20-questionnaire at work. But asking a 3-question quick survey doesn’t take much time and energy. In fact, if you have a few 1-2 question surveys over the week, your employees might not even notice them.
Second, having a defined purpose for each survey is friendlier for both survey organizers and participants. If each of your surveys has a defined goal, participants will have an easier time structuring their feedback. Admins will have an easier time analyzing surveys grouped by theme.
Lastly, you have an easier time managing several small surveys because over time you will quickly realize what questions and surveys you don’t need to track and have your co-workers spend time on. Then you can quickly turn off unnecessary surveys and only leave the ones that general crucial insights for your company.
Follow Up Surveys With Discussions Or At Least Acknowledgements
If you have organized a discussion after surveys, or at least facilitated it in one way or another, it gives your survey a gravity. Do that at least once per month, and employees will know that their responses matter, and will be more focused in providing them.
No one likes to answer questions and feel that their replies have not been seen. Or worse, they were disregarded. And that’s the most common issue with surveys: people provide their responses and never hear back. Slack surveys can take it to the next step. If your employees feel that their responses don’t matter, they can become disengaged and provide simple, meaningless responses.
Let’s say you conducted a Team Feedback Weekly survey. This important survey helped you learn about the struggles of your team and the most damaging factors in their week-to-week work. You already planned to make specific changes to our operation, for example, replace interrupting real-time meetings with asynchronous standups and reevaluate how you assign small tasks.
Great. But now let’s look at this from your team members perspective. They have just complained about how early morning meetings distract them from focused work, an issue that brought down their productivity for months. And they heard nothing in return. They don’t know what (if any) action the management will be taking. They were not informed about the upcoming changes either. It’s very much likely they will feel ignored and provide a “filler” answer during the next survey.
Emphasize Anonymity When You Run Anonymous Surveys In Slack
Anonymous surveys are important for tackling sensitive topics or eliciting engagement from teams that struggle with low trust culture.
But Slack is not associated with anonymity. The majority of time, people there communicate using their names and they learn to expect that their conversations will be visible to everyone who has access to the same Slack channels.
So, it’s no wonder that people often don’t expect any process conducted in Slack to be anonymous, including surveys.
Slack itself does not provide a built-in way to make surveys or polls anonymous. When you run a survey or poll directly in Slack (e.g., using emoji reactions, messages, or basic slash commands), participants’ names are visible. Anonymity is only possible through third-party apps or integrations — like Geekbot, Polly, or others — that handle responses and anonymize them before showing results.
Don’t forget to mention you are running an anonymous survey to put participants in the right mindset!
For example, in Geekbot Surveys you can modify a welcome message to announce the survey will be anonymous. You can also schedule short guiding and reassuring meetings before the first few anonymous surveys.
Control The Frequency of Recurring Surveys
As already mentioned, regularly conducted surveys help you gather and analyze data in ways no other employee analysis tool can.
Just make sure to track your survey frequency – there is no right or wrong answer as to how often you should conduct specific types of surveys, but some frequencies fit some formats better.
For example, one-on-one employee satisfaction surveys should not be made too regular. You simply won’t have time to react to the feedback every week for every employee, which may lead to decrease in engagement.
Additionally, crucial and strategic employee feedback will not be bogged down with operational feedback.
On the contrary, if you are running brief surveys about project challenges, you can run them every two weeks or at the end of every sprint, supplying your retrospectives with additional data.
Make The Most Out of Geekbot!
Even though Geekbot Surveys are a welcome feature that hundreds of teams already put to good use, surveys are just the beginning of what you can do with Geekbot!
Geekbot can help you with:
- Slack Polls
- Asynchronous standup meetings run directly in Slack or MS Teams
- Retrospectives
- One-on-one automated meetings
- Meeting notes
- Anonymous feedback collection
- Team well-being polls
- And more!
As you have already seen the process of creating a survey is quick and simple— you can follow it any time and create surveys, polls, and automated meetings acording to your needs.
Start using Geekbot today. We offer completely free version for team with up to 10 people, or a free 30 day trial for larger teams.
Good luck!