Understanding Microsurveys

Learn how to use and configure Microsurveys for efficient user feedback

Sonia Schiau avatar
Written by Sonia Schiau
Updated over a week ago

Chameleon Microsurveys enable you to collect in-product feedback from your users, without requiring additional coding or engineering time -- you can create on-brand Microsurveys, with custom questions, triggered at the right time to your users.

πŸ‘‡ Check out an interactive demo on how to build a multi-button Microsurvey!

preview of a rating Microsurvey triggered on click

Availability & Usage

πŸ” Startup: 5 Microsurveys

πŸ” Growth & Enterprise: unlimited Microsurveys

πŸ“© Contact: to discuss your plan needs


Each time you go in to build a Microsurvey, you'll have 5 types available:

  • Rating Microsurveys (including CES & CSAT)

  • Net Promoter Score (NPS)

  • Input (free-form text input)

  • Dropdown (many options)

  • Multi-Button (two/three/four/five-button surveys)


Chameleon Microsurveys include up to three different Steps:

  1. Microsurvey Step: a question with a response option (a button response).

  2. 'Comments' Step (optional): a follow-up Step where a user can leave free-form text feedback; can also add a dropdown allowing users to pick from different options; the question and placeholder text can be updated based on which button the user clicked in the Microsurvey Step.

  3. 'Thank you' Step (optional): a thank you message that displays briefly.

πŸŽ“ To get a better understanding of Microsurvey Steps and configuring them, see how Experience Steps work.


To create a Microsurvey, pick this Experience type from the Dashboard's left-side menu, and click the "+ Create a Microsurvey" button.

πŸ‘‰ You can also create a new one from your Homepage -- just click the "+ New Experience" button in the top-right corner and you can select to create a new Microsurvey.

Next, you will follow a dropdown flow to configure every aspect of your Microsurvey, from its type, style, and display location, to when, or how often it should be shown to your users. 😊

You'll configure it in the Dashboard and use the Builder to style and further condition how it displays.

Let's cover the configuration flow together:

This sets the format and specific options you'll have for your Microsurvey. Each type offers different customization options (e.g. a CES Microsurvey has a choice of emojis, numbers, text, etc.) and reporting (e.g. an NPS Microsurvey requires a different analysis than a CSAT).

Once you pick a type, the others will be locked and you won't be able to switch types. This keeps your data clean and organized. πŸ˜‰

Next, you will see the Build Microsurvey panel and you can pick a Template or start from scratch and build out your Microsurvey using the Builder.

β„Ή With your "Survey Step" added, you can click on to "Add Comments" and "Thank You" Steps, or enter the Builder to configure it further. You can also add/delete Steps in the Builder.

These are the options you can set using the Builder:

  • Where the Step should be positioned, and how it can be triggered or dismissed

  • Set specific element or URL rules needed for the Microsurvey to display to users

  • Adjust the width of the Microsurvey canvas, corner radius, opacity, and color

  • Add Step level Custom CSS for styling tweaks

  • Add custom text to the Body and define its color, formatting, and font size, as well as personalization options

  • Add a custom visual - image, GIF, or video

  • Add a Shroud that darkens the screen to highlight your Microsurvey

  • Customize how buttons look and what "Actions" can launch

  • Set the individual Survey labels and input types

  • Set an entry animation to your Microsurvey

β„Ή For a better end-user experience, some styling aspects that you apply to the first Step of your Microsurvey will remain consistent across all Steps. For example, if you add a Shroud to the first Step, that will carry to the "Comments" and "Thank you" Step as well. In these cases, the option is available on the Microsurvey (first) Step and not subsequent Steps.

Once you add the 'Comments' and 'Thank you' Steps in a Microsurvey, you can switch between the 3 Steps Builder TopBar to configure them further.

You can set custom text versions for the different answers in your Microsurvey. For example, when you want to ask different questions depending on whether a user answered the Microsurvey Step positively or negatively.

Responses customization options in the Builder

For each Response group in your "Comments Steps", you can customize the:

  • Question copy

  • Placeholder copy

  • Button copy

  • Button label (text, emojis, numbers)

  • Button Action (launch an Additional Action when a user clicks this)

To customize the responses, go to the corresponding panels on the 'Comments Step' and customize the copy and button "Action".

You can also turn off Comments Steps entirely for a particular response, or for all. Simply toggle them on/off from the Builder's respective Step.

With Comments Steps, you also have a "Dropdown" component available in the Builder. You can leverage the same configurations we have for our Dropdown Microsurvey, in your Comments Step in addition to collecting text comments.

This is useful when you want to gain additional insight into specific features while also enabling them to leave free-form feedback.

Simply click the "Dropdown" component in the Builder to add it to your Microsurvey.

You can then:

  • update the question and dropdown options

  • enable randomized answers or allow for multiple options

  • add an "Other" option and set a long/short input type

β„Ή The Dropdown component is not available on an Input Microsurvey, as you don't have Comments Steps there.

To test how your Microsurvey looks and behaves for the end user, give it a test in preview mode. Once you're happy with it, return to the Dashboard to finish configuring your Microsurvey.

πŸ‘‰ Ensure your Experiences always display correctly; learn more about testing a Chameleon Experience.

Any changes you make in the Builder, you will see them reflected in your Dashboard. You can also easily review all button actions and Step interactions in the Dashboard.

If you have your Environments set, this is where you'll choose where you want your Microsurvey to show up. And, control exactly where it shows up.

This is very useful when you have staging and production environments. Or when you have multiple web pages that cater to different audience groups.

πŸ‘‰ Read more about managing Experiences across different Environments, to learn how to effectively target your Microsurveys to specific groups of domains or subdomains.

Next, select the Segment that should see your Microsurvey. You can search in the drop-down menu and pick from your available Segments or choose to show it to a pre-defined audience created by Chameleon.

You can create a Segment using the data you send to Chameleon, using the default Chameleon data, or any data received from integrations.

Select an audience panel in the Dashboard

As the next step of your Microsurvey configuration, you will ensure it displays at a good time and is non-intrusive to your users' flow. With Recurrence, you can set when and how often a Microsurvey should repeatedly display to your users.

Recurrence dropdown options in the Dashboard

When Recurrence is set the Microsurvey will repeat after the set period, which begins after the user last completes/exists the Microsurvey.

πŸ“ For example, if Nathan saw the NPS Microsurvey, set to repeat each half-year, on Feb 1 and Janice saw it on March 1, Nathan would see it again the next time they visit the app after Aug 1, and similarly, Janice after Sept 1.

β„Ή When creating a Segment based on a user's Microsurvey response, the most recent response will be used. However, all responses will be available within the Chameleon Dashboard to view or download.

If Rate Limiting causes the Microsurvey to be suppressed, then it will appear at the next available opportunity. If the Recurrence is adjusted and the Microsurvey re-published, then the most recent Recurrence setting will be used.

When you're done creating your Microsurvey, you have a few options to ensure you also deliver it at the right time. As the last step, in the 'Review and Publish' panel you can choose to:

  • Publish immediately: Microsurvey is immediately live for all targeted users

  • Schedule publishing: set a date and time for Microsurvey to start being displayed.

  • Set end date: set a date and time to stop being shown to your users; the Microsurvey will switch to a Draft.

    • Unpublish after # responses: set a specific number of responses to trigger the Microsurvey to stop being displayed.

β„Ή If you use both options, your Microsurvey will stop being displayed for whichever comes first -- the unpublish date you set or the number of responses.

Whenever you want to make changes to a live Microsurvey you can easily do it from the Dashboard; don't forget to apply your changes from the Dashboard once you're done in the "Review and Publish" section.

If your Microsurvey isn't showing up as expected, use the Debugger console tool to see detailed information about its settings and quickly solve the issue.

πŸ‘‰ Discover how using Tags to organize Experiences helps the whole team stay organized.


Chameleon automatically collects all user responses, along with analytics around the display, and completion of your Microsurveys. This is available in the Chameleon Dashboard, via our API, via CSV download, and also directly to analytics integrations, including Slack.

All your Microsurveys' data will be available in your Chameleon Dashboard. From here, you can download the data as a CSV and also connect your analytics tool to have the data automatically sent there.

Find all responses for each Microsurvey, on the "Analytics" page in your Dashboard. Here you have a few useful options to efficiently review user feedback:

  • download all responses

  • filter responses

  • summarize responses with AI -- see the summary on the Activity feed

With Chameleon, you can leverage your Microsurvey data to target your users further with Tours, or Launchers. When creating a Segment, you can use your collected survey data to filter out users based on specific actions or responses.

This is powerful to connect user responses to other in-product Experiences and continue to guide and engage your users.

You can also leverage our API to delete responses, here's a quick video walking you through the steps πŸ‘‡


Can I trigger other Experiences using Microsurvey data?

Can I collect free-form feedback using Microsurveys?

Can I show an on-demand Microsurvey?

Yes, you can use Chameleon to show a Microsurvey on-demand.

Did this answer your question?