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Create a custom survey

Last updated: May 16, 2023

Available with any of the following subscriptions, except where noted:

Service Hub Professional, Enterprise

You can create custom feedback surveys to send to your contacts. These surveys can have custom questions and options including star ratings, radio selects and single line text fields. 

Please note: custom feedback survey responses will be associated with the contacts that complete the survey. If you'd like your survey responses to be associated with tickets, you can create a customer support (CES) survey. 

  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Feedback Surveys.
  • You can edit, clone, or delete an existing survey.
    • To edit, hover over the survey and click Edit. If you're editing a survey that has already been published, you cannot edit or delete its survey questions.
    • To clone or delete, hover over the survey and click the More dropdown menu, then select Clone or Delete.
  • To create a new survey, click Create survey in the upper right.
    • In the next page, select Custom survey, then click Next.
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    • Select the delivery method for your survey by clicking Email or Shareable Link.
Please note:
  • To send an email survey, users must have Marketing access permissions, including Publish access to the Email tool.
  • If you unpublish an email survey, contacts who have been sent the survey will be able to fill it out for 14 days afterward. Link-based surveys don't expire unless you unpublish the survey.
    • To continue, click Create.

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    • Click the edit pencil icon at the top to give your survey a unique name.

Email (Email surveys only)

  • In the Email settings section, click the Survey language dropdown menu and select the language you want the survey to be in.
  • Set the Company name, From name and From address for your survey. You can select the name and address of any user in your account.
  • Enter your subject line. To insert a personalization token in the subject, click contacts Personalization token, click the Add contact token dropdown menu and select a token, enter a Default value and click Insert.
  • In the Advanced settings section, you can select an office location.

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  • In the Email body section, enter a Greeting and Introduction for your survey email. Click contacts Personalization token to include a personalization token.

    email-body-custom-survey
  • In the Theme section, to upload an image for the email survey, click to toggle the Featured image switch on and click Replace. In the right panel, select an image or click Add image to upload a new image.
  • To edit the text of the start survey button, enter Button text

    custom-survey-theme
  • Select one of the default color options, or set a custom color by entering a hex color value or clicking the color picker to the right.
  • In the right panel, preview how the question will look.
  • To continue, click the Survey tab.

Survey

  • In the Build your survey section, you can select the types of questions you will be asking your respondents. Click or drag a question to the right panel to build your survey:
    • To add an existing question, select a question from Previously asked questions.
    • To create a new survey question, select one of the Question types. You can add an industry standard question for net promoter score or customer satisfaction by selecting the NPS (beta) or CSAT (beta) module.

Please note: if you're editing an existing survey that has already been published, you cannot edit or delete its survey questions.


  • In the right preview screen, click a question to edit its details. In the left panel:

    • Toggle the switch on to make a question required.
    • Click the text box to edit the text or format of the survey question. You can also enter Help text to assist your visitors in completing the survey. If you're creating an NPS question, you cannot edit the text or format of the survey question.
    • If you're creating a Rating question, click the Icon dropdown menu, and select Circle or Star to choose the type of icon used.
    • In the Feedback property section:
      • Click Create feedback property to create a new property to store your question's response data. In the right panel, you can edit the label or add a description. Once you're done, click Next, then click Create. Any property you create in the Survey editor can be used as a filter in other HubSpot tools, such as reports.
      • To add an existing custom feedback property, you must first add a question of the same property field type. For example, to view all dropdown select custom feedback properties, add a dropdown select question to the survey.
        • To use an existing feedback property, click and type in the Search existing feedback properties bar, or if applicable, select a property from the list. Any property you select in the Survey editor can be used as a filter in other HubSpot tools, such as reports.
    • Once you've selected a corresponding feedback property, depending on the property field type, click to edit the property's options, values, and labels. For Rating properties, select the Reverse scale checkbox to change the order of your rating values.

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  • In the Common modules section, click and drag a module to the right panel to add a header, paragraph of text, image, or divider to your survey.
  • To add an additional step to your survey, click and drag the Step module to the right panel, then customize the modules within each step. Once published, each step will have its own page within the survey and a progress bar will appear to show users their progress.
  • To continue editing an Email survey, click the Thank you tab. To continue editing a Shareable link survey, click the Options tab.

Options (Shareable link surveys only)

  • In the Settings section, click the Survey language dropdown menu and select the language you want the survey to be in.
  • Enter your Company name.
  • In the Theme section, select one of the default color options, or set a custom color by entering a hex color value or clicking the color picker to the right.

options-custom-survey

  • To continue, click the Thank you tab.

Thank you

  • To include a default image at the top of your thank you message, click to toggle the Show image switch on. Click Replace to change the image.
  • Enter your Header and Body text.

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  • To continue with an Email survey, click the Recipients tab. To continue with a Shareable link survey, click the Settings tab.

Recipients (Email surveys only)

  • You can select Became a customer dateStart from scratch to create your own criteria, or Static lists to select a static list you have created.
    • If you select Became a customer date, you can click Edit criteria to further refine your list of recipients. Click Apply when your criteria is ready.
    • If you select Start from scratch, select a property type and click Create criteria. On the Criteria tab, customize your criteria. You can click AND or OR to further customize the filters. You can set filters based on any contact, company, deal, and ticket properties.

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    • By default, existing contacts who meet the selected criteria will receive the survey. To conduct this survey with only newly created contacts who meet the criteria, click the Options tab, then click to toggle the Do you want to include existing contacts? switch off.
    • By default, contacts who have already completed the survey will not receive the survey. To send another survey to contacts who have already completed the survey, click the Options tab, then click to toggle the Do you want to resurvey contacts? switch on.

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    • In the right panel, the survey recipients will display. You can search through this list using the search bar in the upper right. Once you've set up the filters, click Apply in the bottom left.
    • If you select Contacts and lists (static only), click the Send to dropdown menu and select an existing list from your account, or click Create new list to create a new list of contacts.
  • To continue, click the Settings tab.

Settings

Email delivery settings

  • To add a delay between the survey email send and when a contact meets the criteria you've set, select the Add delay option. Click the dropdown menu to select days or hours for the delay and enter a number.
  • To select users and/or teams to receive survey response notifications, click the Add users or teams dropdown menu and select a user or team.

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  • Select the Send submission email notification to the contact owner checkbox to send an email to a contact owner when their contacts submit the survey.
  • Click the toggle to schedule a survey reminder email if a contact doesn't respond to your survey, select the number of days after the survey is sent to send the reminder email.

    custom-survey-reminder-email
  • To create a workflow and automate actions based on your survey, at the top, click Create workflow. A new tab will open for you to create a workflow.

Shareable link settings

  • Click the Add users or teams dropdown menu to select which users receive a notification when a survey response is submitted.
  • Select the Send submission email notification to the contact owner checkbox to send an email to a contact owner when their contacts submit the survey.
  • To create a workflow and automate actions based on your survey, at the top, click Create workflow. A new tab will open for you to create a workflow.

Review and publish

Review your survey settings to ensure that the settings in previous steps have been set up correctly.

  • To see how the survey will appear on desktop, mobile, and tablet, click Preview.
  • If you're creating an Email survey, to send yourself a version of the survey, click Send test survey in the top right. You can preview the email as a specific contact by clicking the Receive email as specific contact dropdown menu and then selecting a contact.
  • If you're creating a Shareable link survey:
    • Click Share in the top right, then click Copy in the dialog box to copy the survey link.
    • Click externalLink Test survey in the top right to open a preview of the survey in a new tab.
  • To review your settings, click Review and publish in the top right.
  • When you're done, clickPublish to take your survey live.

After publishing the survey, you will not be able to edit or delete any of the survey's questions. Instead, you'll need to unpublish the survey and create a new one.

To unpublish a survey:

  • In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Feedback Surveys.
  • Hover over the survey, then click the Actions dropdown menu and select Unpublish.
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