Every now and then we get asked why it is we don't allow ResponseSuite customers to receive partially completed surveys.


There are three reasons we do not support the submission of partially completed surveys and would encourage folks away from using them:


1. Data Integrity.

Combining the data of partially completed surveys with completed ones makes the results invalid and impossible to measure and take insight from.


To illustrate let's take a simple 2-question survey:


Question 1: What did you think of the party?


Question 2: What did you think of the entertainment?


If 100 people star the survey but 20% of people only fill out the first question then your data is compromised.

100 people loved the party, but only 80% of people enjoyed the entertainment. This may not be the case, it could be that 100% of people who completed the Entertainment question loved it. 

This of course gets more complex to understand and dissect with more questions.


That's just data integrity in a purely mathematical sense. However the quality and weight of a response from someone who does not take the time and make the effort to complete a survey should not be the same as someone who does.


Accepting them as the same would not be giving a true balanced comparison in your data because all responses, if some are taken from completed surveys and others from partially completed ones, are not of equal value.


Basically, your data set will be inaccurate and you couldn't get a true measure of the results.


2. Technology

Technically to achieve 'partial completion' this would mean the survey storing each response as it is completed. This slows down surveys and if someone is completing while on a mobile device while on the move, it would be easy for connection to be lost and data lost or errors to occur. 


3. Respondent Permission (Data Protection Rights)

This is the most important one to us.


Until the respondent hits submit they have not actually given you permission to receive that data. They have not submitted it. 


Receiving data before the respondent has committed to submitting it is a direct breach of Data Protection and could land you in hot water with the laws of your and/or the respondent's country/region.


TWO SOLUTIONS


We realise that you want to increase the completion rate of your surveys so here are two workflows we use if someone doesn't complete a survey:


From Email:
- Email the link to your survey.
- Person completes survey gets tag added to say survey completed.
- Those without the tag receive reminders to fill out survey.

From Ads:
- Facebook Pixel on survey and TY page.
- Run your Ad to the Survey.
- The person is Pixeled as Visited Survey
- When they complete survey, Pixeled as Completed (by Pixeling the Thank You page)
- Those without the Completed Pixel are added to a custom audience and are retargeted with further ads.