Using timed actions in website surveys
On each survey page you can add one or more "timed actions". These are actions that are automatically performed when
the survey page becomes active, immediately or after a specified number of seconds. At this moment you can:
- End the survey
- Open a URL, either in a new window, or replacing the current web page
- Open a chat window of an installed chat tool, like Intercom, LiveChat, Olark, SnapEngage, User.com or Zendesk Chat
- Execute a JavaScript statement (if this is enabled for your account)
The last option is useful when your (chat) tool is not listed in the options, you can then just specify the JavaScript statement to activate the
tool yourself. For actions that don't implictly end the survey (e.g. by opening a URL in the current window) you can specify whether the action
ends the survey or not. No actions can be added after an action that ends the survey.
You can add timed actions to any survey page, not only end-pages.
If a timed action action ends the survey, the survey is always marked as "completed", even if there are unanswered required questions.
To add a timed action to a survey page, go to the page's TIMED ACTIONS sub-tab and then click the "Add a timed action" button.
Then fill out the field in the shown dialog:
Some use cases for using a timed action
-
When a user gives a certain answer you may want to open a chat window to talk to the user directly. For this case you can navigate to
a survey page that immediately opens a chat window and closes the survey.
-
For certain "thank you" pages you may want to automatically direct the user to a page on your website after waiting a certain number of seconds.
-
An end page (i.e. a page without questions and no actions to navigate to another page) is normally closed automatically after 5 seconds.
You can override this timeout by adding an explicit "end survey" timed action with a different time. The time may be shorter or longer than 5 seconds.
You can also specify a different action type for the action. An end page will never automatically close before the last timed action has executed.