Six or seven people in ten answer us. The median business-to-business survey gets 8.18%.
Response to business-to-business surveys sits at a median of 8.18%, and the long slide in telephone polling tells the same story, from 36% in 1997 to about 6% by 2018. Between 60 and 70% of the people in one of our rooms complete our intake questions. We do not think that is because our questions are better written. It is because answering them earns something the person wanted anyway. The questions are part of registering for an event they have already decided to attend, and the answers come back as introductions to named people who can help with the thing they just described. Nobody is asked to do research a favour. That exchange is the whole mechanism, and it is the part that is hard to copy. Survicate, 2025 Pew Research Center, 2026
What the numbers look like
Share of the people asked who answered
Three different kinds of measurement, put on one axis
The numbers
| Theme | Per cent |
|---|---|
| All Along intake, upper end | 70 |
| All Along intake, lower end | 60 |
| Telephone survey, 1997 | 36 |
| Business-to-business survey, median | 8.18 |
| Telephone survey, about 2018 | 6 |
Method
The intake is two questions inside the registration flow for an event. A person answers them while they are signing up, not in a separate message a week later. The answers do the work of matching, so the person who answers receives a short list of named people who can help with what they described, and a reason for each name.
We count a completion as someone who registered and answered both questions. Between February and August 2026, across 17 rooms and around 660 responses, that figure sat between 60 and 70% of a room. We publish the band rather than an average because the rooms differ in size and format, and one number would hide that.
The comparisons are published benchmarks, not our own measurements. The median business-to-business survey response rate is 8.18%. Telephone survey response fell from 36% in 1997 to about 6% by 2018. Survicate, 2025 Pew Research Center, 2026
What we cannot conclude
Everything below is a real limit on the finding above. We would rather you knew it from us than found it yourself.
- We cannot claim a like-for-like comparison. Our figure and the published benchmarks cover different populations, using different instruments, for different purposes. Side by side they show an order of magnitude, not a result.
- We cannot separate the effect of the introductions from the effect of the moment. Being asked during registration and being paid back in introductions arrive together, and we have never run one without the other.
- We cannot say that a survey sent by the same organisation to the same people would do worse. We have not run that test, and it is the test that would settle it.
- We cannot generalise past people who signed up for an event. Everyone in our denominator has already said yes to something.
- Nobody here was sampled. People put themselves forward, at events they chose, which holds every number on this page to the rooms it came from.
Cite this study
Please quote the finding with its sample size attached. If you need something we have not published, ask and we will say whether we have it.
All Along (2026). Six or seven people in ten answer us. The median business-to-business survey gets 8.18%. Retrieved from https://www.all-along.com/research/why-professionals-answer
Sources
- Survicate, 2025. Survey response rate benchmarks. survicate.com/reports/survey-response-rate-benchmarks/
- Pew Research Center, 2026 (via SurveyMonkey). Survey response rate benchmarks. www.surveymonkey.com/learn/survey-best-practices/survey-response-rate-benchmarks/
Other studies
- Every room was short on growth and long on personal effectiveness. 18 August 2026 · Four rooms, February to August 2026
- Nine of the ten things people raise most often are not on the form. 21 July 2026 · around 660 responses across 17 rooms, February to August 2026