How to send surveys
Collect scores from a large group of stakeholders with the least effort on both sides.
Introduction
A survey is a link. You share it with the members of a stakeholder group by email, in a newsletter, on your intranet or in a supplier portal. Respondents answer in their own language, on a laptop or a phone, and their scores land in the platform.
If a group assesses both impact and financial materiality, it gets two surveys and two links. Explain this in your invitation.
The survey setup form: name, logo, welcome video, questions per respondent, question selection method, languages.
Steps
The questions in a survey are the IROs you selected. Once the first link is live, the list is fixed for the whole assessment: an IRO added later is assigned to groups that have already answered, the respondents who finished are never asked it, and it has to be translated into every language first. Finish Review and select IROs and Review questions and translations before this step. If you must change something once collection has started, contact us through the chat first.
Step 1: Create the survey
In the group's data collection methods, enable Survey and fill in:
| Field | Guidance |
|---|---|
| Name | Appears at the top of the survey. |
| Logo | Required. The survey will not save without it. |
| Welcome video | Optional. A short video of your CEO or sustainability lead explaining why the survey matters raises response rates. |
| Target number of responses | Your goal for this group. Used to track progress. |
| Questions per respondent | How many questions each respondent gets. Count one minute per question. Fifteen is a practical maximum. |
| Question selection method | Randomized or personalized, see below. |
| Languages | The assessment languages the survey is offered in. |
Questions per respondent and selection method. If the group has more assigned questions than you ask per respondent, the platform picks a subset for each respondent:
- Randomized: a random subset. Simple, and the right choice when the number of assigned questions is close to the number asked. If the assigned questions are fewer than the number asked, everyone gets all of them.
- Personalized: the respondent first rates their expertise on the topics covered, then receives questions on the topics they know best. Use it for large groups with many topics, for example all employees. It adds a screen before the questions.
Step 2: Preview it
Open the survey link yourself to see what respondents see, in each language. Walk through it without submitting. Nothing is recorded until a respondent completes the last step. If you did submit a test, ask us to delete it.
A survey question as the respondent sees it: title, question, context, labels, overall score and the optional score breakdown.
Step 3: Enable and share the link
A new survey is disabled by default. Enable it, then copy the link. A link copied from a disabled survey does not record answers.
Share the link with a short message that says why you ask, how long it takes and by when you need the answer. Mention the two links if the group assesses both materiality types.
Step 4: What respondents see
For every question, respondents see the title, the question, the context and the ESRS labels of the IRO. They score from 1 to 5 and can add a comment. Two ways to score:
- Overall score: one score from 1 to 5.
- Score breakdown: a score per ESRS criterion (scale, scope, irremediability and likelihood for impacts; magnitude and likelihood for risks and opportunities). The overall score is calculated from the breakdown.
The breakdown gives you better data and is what EFRAG recommends, but it is optional for the respondent. We saw response rates drop among external stakeholders when it was mandatory. Ask for it in your invitation: "please use the detailed scoring if you have five extra minutes". See How to score IROs for what each criterion means.
At the end, respondents can leave their email address or stay anonymous. Say in your invitation which one you expect.
The scoring definitions respondents see are the EFRAG definitions and cannot be changed per assessment. If your company uses its own thresholds, for example euro bands for financial magnitude, share them in the invitation or in the welcome video. As long as respondents score from 1 to 5, the calculation is unchanged.
Step 5: Follow up
Watch the response count per group on the engagement page. Send a reminder after two weeks. Push the groups with the fewest answers first. See Monitor and close.
Tips from other clients
- Keep it short. Fewer, better questions beat a long survey nobody finishes.
- Put the link in the email signature of the people who talk to that group, or on a SharePoint page.
- Ask a representative voice when a group is hard to reach, for example a works council member for employees.
- Suppliers are the hardest group to reach. Give them the shortest survey and the longest deadline.
Output
- A live survey link per stakeholder group, and one per materiality type for groups that assess both.
- Scores and comments landing in the platform as respondents finish.