So you deployed your survey and ran it for 30 days, but now you want to make some changes. That's great! We always encourage iterations and improvements based on what you're seeing with your own customers. But what changes should you make? And what impact will they have on your existing data, if any? This help doc will seek to explain what kinds of changes you can make and in what way so that you can make the most of your existing data and your survey design improvements!
Question: On one of my questions, customers are reporting common answers in the 'Other' free-text field. I want to include one (or more) of those answers as a response option in the survey question. Can I do this?
Absolutely! Feel free to go into the survey editor and add that response option to the existing list. The system will not add those previous answers into the same bucket (technically their answer is recorded as 'Other' in our database), but moving forward your customers will have the opportunity to select that option.
Question: I have realized that very few customers (maybe even no one at all) are selecting a particular response option and I want to remove it from the list of response options. What impact will this have on my existing data?
It is totally possible to delete a response option from the list for a particular question in the editor. Keep in mind that when you delete it, any past answers will now be categorized as 'Other' with the text for that option as the free-text field. For instance, if you delete 'Press or other article' from the HDYHAU question, all responses will now be categorized as 'Other' and you will see the 'Press or other article' listed in the Reports section for that question with the total number next to it. This may artificially inflate the 'Other' category for past data but won't have an impact on data moving forward.
Question: I don't like how one response option is phrased, and I would like to make a change to it. Will that data remain in that response option bucket after I make those edits?
No, it will not. The data for a particular response option is connected to the specific spelling for that option. So if you change 'FB & IG' to 'Facebook & Instagram', the data for the old spelling will shift to the 'Other' category with 'FB & IG' as the free-text field fill-in.
Is this change worth it then? Sometimes it is! The above example may not be, but perhaps you want to get more particular responses about Instagram on your HDYHAU question. So you delete the 'Instagram' option and instead supply the following options: 'Instagram Feed', 'Instagram Reels', 'Instagram Friend Profile', 'Instagram Ad', 'Instagram Discovery', or 'Instagram Shopping'. For all of the data moving forward, you'd be able to have the Instagram channel clearly separated out into the different potential discovery buckets.
Question: I want to change several questions on my survey, but I do not want the data for those changes to be relegated to the 'Other' category as free text. What other option would you suggest?
Great question! You do have another option here. You can make a copy/clone of your survey, then make all the changes that you want to the clone. When you're ready, you can turn on the cloned survey (make sure to save, Publish, and Add to the Confirmation screen!) and turn off the original survey. That way you can maintain the data from the old survey and get newly segmented data on the new survey. One caveat with this option, the new/cloned survey will now display to customers who had previously completed the original survey. Just one thing to keep in mind as you're making your decision.
Question: Because of question limits on my survey, I want to remove a question from my survey and add in a different question. What will happen to that data?
If you delete a question from your survey, that will also delete the corresponding data from your Reports page. If you'd like to continue to have access to that data, we recommend cloning your survey and deleting the question from the cloned survey rather than deleting the original question on the original survey.
As always, we are happy to help answer questions or think through different strategies. If you have any questions outside of the answers you've found on this page, be sure to reach out via the chat and we'll provide you with the best answers we can!