How to distribute a survey using Survey Distribution Agent

Creating a survey is only half the job. Once your survey is ready, you need an effective way to get it in front of the right customers and encourage them to respond.

Survey Distribution Agent helps you turn your survey into a flexible distribution workflow. Start with a pre-built workflow, customize how and when the survey is delivered, test different invitation templates, optimize delivery times, and automatically follow up with customers who don't engage.

Log in to your Birdeye account.

Go to Surveys AI.

Select Agents.

Select Survey Distribution Agent.

You can create a distribution workflow using a pre-built template from the Library or build one manually.

You don't have to build your distribution workflow from scratch. The Library includes ready-to-use workflows designed for common survey distribution needs.

You can choose from templates such as:

Select the template that best matches your goal and click Use agent.

The workflow opens with the required steps already configured, which you can customize based on your distribution strategy.

​Handy Tip: Start with the template closest to your goal.
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The pre-built workflow is a starting point. You can add, remove, or modify tasks to match your survey distribution strategy.
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Click the pencil icon to open the details drawer on the right.

Here, you can review and update the agent's Name, Goals and Locations. These fields are populated by default, but you can update them to align with your requirements.
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Click Save after making your changes.

Start by selecting the event that triggers the workflow.

For example, select Contact is added to send the survey when a new contact is added. You can also specify a contact source or select All Sources.
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This determines which contacts are eligible to enter the survey distribution workflow.

To further refine when the workflow runs, add conditions or group conditions using the + or arrow buttons.
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Review the pre-configured Description, which defines what the agent is intended to achieve. Make any necessary changes, then select Save before proceeding.

Select the survey you want to send to your contacts.

The selected survey will be included in the survey request sent through the communication channel you configure next.
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Select the communication channels you want to use to distribute the survey.

You can send the survey through:

Email and text are configured as separate tasks, so you can choose the combination that works best for your audience.
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For example, you can add both a Send Survey Request Email task and a Send Survey Request Text task to distribute the survey through both channels.

Click the pencil icon under Tool to select the template that best suits your audience, as shown in the above GIF.
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Choose the email or text template you want customers to receive with the survey.

Your invitation template is the message customers see when they receive the survey request.

If you've selected an A/B testing workflow, configure the two invitation variants you want to compare.
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You can:

For example, you can split 100 contacts equally between two templates:

When the test ends, Survey Distribution Agent evaluates the templates using your selected winning metric. The better-performing template becomes the winning variant and is used for the remaining eligible contacts.

This helps you identify the survey invitation that is most likely to drive the outcome you care about, whether that's opening the message, clicking the survey, or completing it.
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The right survey can still be missed if it arrives at the wrong time.

Use Best Day to Send and Best Time to Send to optimize when the survey is delivered.
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When enabled, these options use contact-level engagement patterns to determine the most suitable day and time to send the survey to each contact.

You can enable either option independently or use both together.

This helps you move from sending surveys at a fixed time to delivering them when each customer is more likely to engage.
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You can add a delay and condition to automatically follow up with customers who don't interact with the survey invitation.

For example, you can give customers two days to click the survey link before sending a reminder.

With this workflow:

This lets you follow up automatically without sending unnecessary reminders to customers who have already engaged.
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Your workflow can continue even after a customer completes the survey.

Add tasks based on how you want to act on the customer's feedback.

For example, you can:

This helps you connect survey distribution with the actions your business needs to take after collecting feedback.

If you prefer to build your distribution journey from scratch, you can create a workflow manually.
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Select Create manually, then add the triggers, tasks, conditions, delays, and actions needed for your survey distribution strategy.
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Once you've configured the workflow, click the Run Test icon.

A confirmation pop-up appears. Click Run Test to start the test and verify that the workflow works as expected.
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If you need to make any changes, update the workflow and run the test again. Once everything looks good, you can publish the workflow.
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Once you've configured and tested your survey distribution workflow:

Your Survey Distribution Agent is now ready to distribute the survey according to the workflow you've configured.
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Choose the right audience. Test what works. Send at the right time. Follow up when needed. And turn completed surveys into action.