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Move survey respondents to a follow-up list

A satisfaction survey reply updates the contact in Constant Contact and moves them to a follow-up list with a score tag.

When this happens

New submission on your feedback or survey form

Do this

Update the contact in Constant Contact and move them to a follow-up list with a feedback tag

One-directional. A submission triggers the action — nothing is written back into your form.

Survey answers usually die in a dashboard nobody opens. Sending the reply straight into Constant Contact means a low score can pull someone onto a win-back list within the hour, while a high score puts them where the review request goes.

Customer success and retention teams run this one. The reply is an update rather than a new contact — these people are already on your list — so the tag and the list membership change while the rest of the record stays as it was. The written comments stay in formformform, where they remain searchable.

Setting it up

  1. 1

    Create the follow-up list in Constant Contact and the tags you will use — "Promoter", "Passive", "Detractor" — before building the Zap, since the action cannot create tags.

  2. 2

    Publish the customer satisfaction survey in formformform with Email Address required, otherwise there is nothing to match the reply against.

  3. 3

    In Zapier, trigger on formformform "New Submission" for the survey form and load one completed test response.

  4. 4

    Add Zapier paths on the 0–10 recommendation score so each band routes to its own branch — the tag and the destination list differ per band.

  5. 5

    On each branch add Constant Contact "Create or Update Contact", set the follow-up list, and apply the tag for that band.

  6. 6

    Map Email Address as the match key and Name to the contact name; the contact already exists, so these confirm the match rather than create anything.

  7. 7

    Send the score and the satisfaction rating into custom contact fields, so segments can be built on them later inside Constant Contact.

  8. 8

    Submit one low score and one high score through the live form, confirm each landed on the right list with the right tag, then turn the Zap on.

What maps where

Using the Customer Satisfaction Survey as the starting point. These are its real fields — swap in your own and the mapping works the same way.

Form fieldConstant Contact
NameContact name, confirming the match
Email AddressContact email address — the key Constant Contact updates against
On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?Custom contact field, and the value the Zapier paths branch on
Overall, how satisfied are you with your experience?Custom contact field, used to segment the follow-up list
What is the main reason for your score?Custom contact field, truncated — the full text stays in formformform

Variations worth knowing

Keep detractors away from campaigns

Point the low-score path at an internal list that no campaign sends to, and let a person read the comment before anything automated goes out. The tag still records the score, so the contact rejoins normal sending once the issue is closed.

Ask promoters for a review

Route scores of nine and ten onto the list your review-request campaign uses, tagged with the month. Constant Contact sends the ask a day or two later, while the good experience is still recent enough to write about.

If something isn't arriving

A survey reply creates a new contact instead of updating one

The address given on the survey does not match the one already on file — a work address on the record, a personal one in the reply. Add a Zapier lookup before the update, or ask people to reply from the address the survey reached.

Tags stack up over successive surveys

Create or Update adds tags without clearing the old ones, so a customer surveyed twice can be both Detractor and Promoter. Remove the previous tag in a separate Constant Contact step, or date-stamp each tag so the newest is obvious.

Frequently asked questions

Can the form show a different thank-you message based on the score?

Yes. Conditional logic can branch on the score and show a different closing message — an apology and a route to a human for a low score, a review link for a high one — while the Zap handles Constant Contact in the background.

Do I have to survey people who are already contacts?

No, though the update only works when the address matches an existing record. A reply from an unknown address is created as a new contact on the follow-up list, which is usually fine but worth knowing before you read the numbers.

Is anything written back into the survey from Constant Contact?

No. The connection runs one way: a submission triggers the Constant Contact action. The form cannot read a contact's history, so it cannot greet someone by name or skip questions based on what your email tool already holds.

Related automations

Build the form first

The automation needs somewhere to fire from. Publish a form, connect it once, and every submission from then on runs this flow.

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