Sending Surveys to Individual Contacts

To send a survey to a contact:

1. Navigate to Sendings in the sidebar
2. Click the New Sending button in the top right corner

This opens the New Sending dialog, where you'll configure all the details for your survey invitation.

The first and most important step is choosing who will receive your survey.

In the Contact field (marked as required):

1. Click into the search box
2. Type the contact's name or email address
3. As you type, a dropdown appears with matching contacts
4. Each result shows the contact's full name and their email or phone number

The search looks across:

• First names
• Last names
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers

All searches are case-insensitive and support partial matches, so typing "john" will find "Johnson", "Johnny", and "john@example.com".

When you click on a contact from the dropdown:

1. The search box updates with the contact's full details
2. A green checkmark icon appears, confirming your selection
3. You'll see text like: "Selected: John Smith (john@example.com)"

If you need to choose a different contact, click the Change link next to the confirmation text. This clears your selection and lets you search again.

For a contact to receive a survey, they must have:

• At least one valid email address or phone number
• Not be marked as unsubscribed

If you try to send to an unsubscribed contact, the system will automatically cancel the sending and log the reason.

While optional, selecting a specific survey helps you track which questionnaire you're sending and personalizes the invitation email.

The Survey dropdown shows only active surveys. Draft and archived surveys are automatically excluded to prevent sending incomplete or outdated questionnaires.

Click the dropdown to see all available active surveys, then select the one you want to send. If you don't select a survey, Demeterrr will send a generic "Feedback Survey" invitation.

Selecting a survey provides several benefits:

• The survey name appears in the email subject and body
• You can track sending performance by specific questionnaire
• The invitation is more personalized and relevant
• It's easier to understand your analytics later

For details on creating and managing surveys, see Managing Surveys.

Demeterrr gives you three channel options for reaching your contact.

Use the three toggle buttons to choose:

Auto (Default)

• Automatically selects the best channel based on availability
• Prefers email if the contact has a valid email address
• Falls back to SMS if no email is available
• Respects your organization's SMS quota limits

Email

• Forces delivery via email only
• Requires the contact to have a valid email address
• Useful when you want to ensure a detailed, formatted message

SMS

• Forces delivery via SMS text message only
• Requires the contact to have a valid phone number
• Best for time-sensitive requests or mobile-first contacts
• Subject to your SMS quota and pricing

When you select Auto, the system follows this logic:

1. First preference: Email (if contact has email address)
2. Second preference: SMS (if contact has phone number and SMS quota available)
3. Fallback: Email with notification if SMS quota exceeded

The Auto channel respects your organization's SMS monthly limit. If you've reached your SMS quota for the month, it automatically falls back to email instead of failing. See SMS Sending for details on quotas and pricing.

Several optional fields let you capture additional context about the survey sending.

Search for an existing organization to associate with this sending, or create a new one inline by typing a name and clicking "Create new organization".

Organizations help you:

• Group contacts by company or entity
• Track feedback by business relationship
• Segment reports by organization

Learn more in Organizations.

If you have multiple locations or want to track which employee served the customer:

Location: Select from your configured locations. This helps you analyze feedback by physical location or branch.

Employee: Choose the employee who served this customer. This enables employee performance tracking and ties feedback to specific team members.

Both fields are optional, but they unlock powerful segmentation in your reports when you consistently use them.

If your account has custom fields configured with the "Show in send form" toggle enabled, they'll appear at the bottom of the dialog.

Custom fields let you capture:

• Industry or vertical
• Account tier or plan
• Project or campaign identifiers
• Any other data specific to your business

Values you enter here are merged into the contact's record automatically when you send. For details on configuring custom fields, see Custom Fields.

Once you've filled in the required fields (contact at minimum), click the Send button.

When you click Send:

1. The system validates your inputs
2. Any custom field values are merged into the contact record
3. If you selected an organization, it's associated with the contact
4. A sending record is created with status "pending"
5. An Inngest background job triggers to deliver the message
6. The dialog closes and you return to the sendings list

The actual delivery happens asynchronously in the background. This means your sending might take a few seconds to show as "sent" in the list.

Before sending, the system verifies:

• Contact is not marked as unsubscribed
• Contact has a valid email or phone number
• If channel is "email", contact must have email
• If channel is "sms", contact must have phone
• If a survey is selected, it must be active status

If any validation fails, you'll see an error message explaining what needs to be fixed.

Once sent, you can track the sending in the Sendings list.

The sendings table shows:

• Contact: Who received the survey
• Survey: Which questionnaire was sent
• Channel: Whether it was delivered via Email or SMS (with icon badges)
• Status: Current status with color-coded badges
  • Pending (gray): Queued but not yet sent
  • Sent (green): Successfully delivered
  • Failed (red): Delivery failed
  • Completed (emerald): Contact responded to the survey
• Sent Date: When the message was delivered

If you selected Auto channel and the system fell back from SMS to email, you'll see:

• Channel badge shows "Email"
• The sending event details log the fallback reason (e.g., "sms_quota_exceeded")

This helps you understand why a message went via email when you might have expected SMS.

To send surveys to many contacts at once, use the Bulk Send feature instead of creating individual sendings one by one. Bulk Send supports up to 1,000 contacts per batch and includes CSV upload for importing new contacts on the fly.

See Bulk Sending for complete details.

"Contact not found" error

• Ensure the contact hasn't been deleted
• Check you're searching in the correct organization

"Contact is unsubscribed"

• The contact has opted out of communications
• Update their subscription status in Contact Details if this was a mistake

"No valid email or phone"

• Edit the contact to add at least one communication channel
• See Managing Contacts

Message shows as "pending" for more than a few minutes

• Check your Inngest background job queue
• Verify your email and SMS service credentials are configured

Now that you know how to send to individual contacts, explore:

• Understanding email delivery and formatting
• How SMS sending works with quotas and pricing
• Sending to multiple contacts at once
• Tracking delivery status and responses
• Managing contact information and preferences