How to get people to actually answer your date poll

Open the message, tap the link, wait for a page, create an account, confirm an email, come back, work out the interface, answer. Every one of those loses some people, and the ones you lose are never the ones you can afford to lose.

Removing steps beats chasing. Six people chased is an afternoon; one step removed is everyone, permanently.

• Sign-up. By far the biggest. If answering needs an account, expect to lose a third of a casual group and most of the people over sixty.
• App installs. Same effect, larger. A web page works everywhere.
• Leaving the inbox. If you invite by email, the answer buttons should be in the email. Here they are.
• Reading to work out what is being asked. Put the actual question in the title.
• Deciding whether it is urgent. Give a date. "By Thursday" is a decision made for them.

The best channel is the one that person already reads without deciding to. For a team that is usually email or the work chat. For friends it is the group chat, and email will be quietly ignored by half of them.

Send it in more than one place if the group spans both. The same link works everywhere and answering twice does no harm.

"Still need five answers, closing Thursday" works. "Bump" does not. Name what is missing and when it closes.

If two reminders have not moved someone, they are not going to be moved by a third. Chase them individually or decide without them - both are better than a thread that everyone else is still being notified about.

Showing the running result once someone has answered is a small thing that matters: they can see the effect of what they just did. If you have hidden results until answered - reasonable, it stops people copying the crowd - they still see the grid the moment they are done.

And close the loop. A group that gets told the outcome answers the next poll faster. A group that never hears back stops answering entirely, which is the real cost of leaving a poll open forever.

How long should I leave a poll open?

Two to three days for most groups, a week if it spans a weekend or people are travelling. Longer than that and early answers start going stale.

Should I chase people individually?

After one group reminder, yes. A direct message to two named people beats a third broadcast that mostly annoys the people who already answered.

Do reminder emails get sent automatically?

Anyone invited by email can get a reminder, capped at two per person per date poll, and email is batched so a burst of activity becomes one message rather than twenty.

• Group scheduling poll Create a scheduling poll for a group in about a minute. Propose dates, share one link, and see at a glance which date the most people can make.
• Find a date everyone can make Stop guessing which evening works. Propose a handful of dates, share one link, and let everyone mark when they can. Free, no account, answers in minutes.

• How to schedule a meeting with a group A short, practical method for getting a group of people onto one date: how many options to offer, how far ahead to ask, and how to close it out.