Log every feedback score, then follow up a day later
Formatter cleans the rating into a number, the row lands in your analysis sheet, and a Delay sends the follow-up email a day later.
New Submission on your Feedback form
Use Formatter to clean the rating, log it to a sheet, then use Delay to send a follow-up email a day later
One-directional. A submission triggers the action — nothing is written back into your form.
Ratings arrive in whatever shape the question produced: a word, a number with a label attached, a scale answer that sorts as text. A column of those cannot be averaged, so the analysis waits until someone cleans it, and it usually waits a long time.
Formatter does the cleaning on the way past, and the row lands in the sheet ready to chart. The thank-you goes a day later on a Delay, because a follow-up question reads better once the person is no longer mid-feedback. Product teams keep a rolling score this way without buying a research tool.
Setting it up
- 1
Publish the feedback form and note exactly how each Overall Satisfaction option is worded. Formatter has to be told what to strip.
- 2
In Zapier, add formformform's New Submission trigger on the feedback form and pull a test response that has both a rating and a written comment.
- 3
Add a Formatter step, choose Numbers, and run Overall Satisfaction through Extract Number so an answer like 4 — Satisfied arrives as 4.
- 4
Add a second Formatter step for the recommendation question if it carries text too, so both columns reach the sheet as numbers.
- 5
Add the spreadsheet action and append one row: the submission date, both numbers, and the two comment answers in their own columns.
- 6
Add a Delay For step of 24 hours after the row is written, never before it. A delayed row is a row missing from this morning's chart.
- 7
Add the email action after the Delay, thanking the person by name and asking one follow-up question about what they said could improve.
- 8
Test end to end and expect the email a day later. Zapier's history shows the run waiting at the Delay, which is how you know it worked.
What maps where
Using the Customer Feedback Form as the starting point. These are its real fields — swap in your own and the mapping works the same way.
| Form field | Zapier |
|---|---|
| Overall Satisfaction | Through Formatter, then into the rating column of the sheet |
| How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague? | Second numeric column, cleaned by the same Formatter step |
| What could we improve? | Comments column, and the line the follow-up email quotes back |
| What did you like most? | Positives column in the sheet, read when writing release notes |
| Email Address | Recipient of the delayed follow-up email |
| Name | Greeting in the follow-up, and the label on the sheet row |
Variations worth knowing
Put a Path after the sheet row. Anything below your threshold goes straight to the support channel with the comment attached and never receives the automated thank-you. A cheerful email a day after a complaint does more harm than no email at all.
Add Zapier's Digest step alongside the spreadsheet append, collecting each rating for seven days and releasing one summary on Monday. The sheet still gets a row per response; the team reads one post a week rather than watching them arrive.
If something isn't arriving
The values are still text. Check the Formatter step's output in the Zap history rather than its configuration — if it returns the whole option label, switch to Extract Number, and set the spreadsheet column to a number format as well.
The email question is optional, so the send step runs with a blank recipient and errors. Add a Filter before the Delay that continues only when the address exists, and keep the spreadsheet step ahead of it so every rating is still logged.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Delay hold up my other Zap runs?
No. Each run waits on its own, and new submissions keep arriving and starting their own delayed runs behind it. A day-long Delay does not queue anything, and it does not affect the spreadsheet step that has already finished.
Can the follow-up go at a set time instead of 24 hours later?
Use Delay Until rather than Delay For. It holds the run until a timestamp you calculate, so feedback left overnight and feedback left at lunchtime both get their email at the same hour of the following day.
Where do replies to the follow-up go?
To whatever inbox the email step sends from. They do not attach to the original response, since nothing travels back into formformform from Zapier. Put the submission date in the subject line to keep the sheet row and the reply thread findable together.
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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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