Creating surveys

Connected feedback sources tell you what customers say when they choose to speak up. Surveys let you ask the questions yourself - and in Pilea, every response lands in the same analysis pipeline as the rest of your feedback.

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The three-step builder

Building a survey is a three-step flow:

1. Basic Info - give the survey a name, a title, and a description.
2. Questions - add your questions in the visual builder. You need at least one, and you can mix question types: NPS (0-10), CSAT (Stars), CES (Effort Score), Thumbs Up/Down, Rating Scale, Open-ended, Multiple Choice, Text Input, Long Text, Dropdown, Checkbox, and Radio Buttons.
3. Settings - configure how the survey is displayed.

Then Publish Survey.

A few things you can add to a question:

• An image. Each question can carry one image (JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP, up to 10MB) with a description for screen readers, so you can ask about a specific screen or design.
• An “Other” option. Choice questions can include an optional Other answer with a free-text field, so respondents aren’t forced into your list.

💡 Tip: Short surveys finish. A single well-aimed NPS or rating question with a follow-up beats a ten-question form most respondents abandon.

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Display modes and the shareable link

Choose how the survey appears when embedded in your product:

Mode	How it works
Popup	A modal overlay
Expanded	Always visible inline
Expandable Link	A collapsed link that expands when clicked

You can customise the link text, the submit button text, and the thank-you message, so the survey speaks in your product’s voice rather than ours. Pilea generates embed code for your site, so getting a survey in front of users is a copy-paste job.

Every published survey also gets a shareable link: a hosted page with its own URL that you can drop in emails, docs, or chat. You’ll find it, together with the embed code, when you open the survey.

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Where responses go

This is the part that makes Pilea surveys different from a standalone form tool: responses don’t pile up in a separate results tab waiting for someone to export a CSV.

Each response lands as a mention with the source Survey and goes through the same analysis pipeline as everything else - PII redaction (if enabled), sentiment, classification, customer linking, and linking to backlog items. A survey answer that mentions a pain point counts toward the same backlog item as the support tickets about it. One pipeline, one backlog, no silos.

If PII redaction is on, a response is not analysed until redaction has confirmed it is safe. See PII redaction settings.

ℹ️ Note: Already ran surveys elsewhere? You don’t have to abandon that data. Upload survey spreadsheets under Context and Pilea will process those responses too.

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A sensible first survey

1. Create a survey with one NPS question and one open follow-up.
2. Publish it and send the shareable link to a recent cohort.
3. Give responses time to arrive, then check your mentions filtered by source Survey.
4. Watch the backlog: items your survey respondents echo will gain mentions - and priority score - accordingly.

The survey doesn’t just tell you a number. It feeds the same evidence engine that ranks your entire backlog.

Next: Working with mentions