Understand multi-channel reminders

Reminders are the quiet workhorse of participation. Most people don't answer a survey the first time they see it, so the follow-up nudge is what actually lifts your response rate. CultureMonkey can send those nudges over five different channels - Email, SMS, Slack, WhatsApp, and Teams - and the channel you pick shapes how every reminder behaves.

This guide explains the channel side of reminders: which channels can send them, how CultureMonkey decides who gets nudged, the guardrails that stop people being over-reminded, and the practical differences between channels (delivery, phone numbers, fallbacks) that are worth knowing before you launch. If you want the difference between the patterns of reminders (scheduled versus recurring versus automatic), that's covered separately in Recurring vs one-time reminders explained. This article is about the channels underneath all of them.

Which channels support reminders

CultureMonkey delivers surveys - and their reminders - over five channels:

Email is the baseline. If a survey isn't explicitly set to another channel, it goes out (and reminds) by email. The other four channels appear as options only when your account has them switched on: Slack and Teams require their integration to be connected, and SMS and WhatsApp require those channels to be enabled for the account. If you don't see a channel you expect, it usually means the integration or account setting isn't in place yet.

One channel is the exception to all of this: QR-only surveys don't get reminders at all. A QR survey is answered by scanning a poster or link with no individually tracked recipient, so there's nobody specific to nudge. Reminder options are hidden for QR-only surveys, and the reminder job skips them entirely.

Reminders follow the survey's channel

Here's the most important thing to internalize: a reminder uses the same channel the survey was sent on. You don't pick a reminder channel independently of the survey (with one exception we'll get to). When you launch a survey over Slack, its scheduled and recurring reminders go over Slack. Launch over SMS, and the reminders are texts.

Under the hood, each survey carries a channel flag, and the reminder engine checks that flag when it fires: if the survey is a Slack survey it sends a Slack message, if it's a Teams survey it posts to Teams, if it's SMS it texts, and so on. If none of those flags are set, it falls back to email. So your channel decision at launch is really a decision about how every future nudge will reach people too.

The one place you can pick a channel per nudge is a manual reminder. More on that below.

How non-responders are targeted

Reminders are deliberately narrow. Every reminder CultureMonkey sends passes three checks before it reaches a person, and all three have to be true:

• The survey was actually sent to them. If an employee was never sent the survey (for example, they joined after launch, or aren't in the audience), they're skipped. Internally this is a check that a "survey sent" timestamp exists for that participant.
• They haven't submitted yet. The moment someone responds, they drop out of every reminder list for that survey. Reminders only chase open, unanswered invitations. This is the "non-responder" targeting people mean when they talk about reminders.
• They haven't already been reminded today. Each participant carries a "last reminded" date, and if that date is today, they're skipped this time around.

Put together, these mean a reminder is always a nudge to the remaining non-responders, never a re-blast to everyone. You never have to manually build a "who hasn't answered" list; CultureMonkey recalculates it fresh every time a reminder fires.

The one-per-day guardrail

The single most important protection in the reminder system is this: a participant will never receive more than one reminder in the same day. It doesn't matter how many reminder rules you have running or how they overlap - a scheduled reminder, a weekly recurring rule, and a manual push could all be aimed at the same Tuesday, and a given employee still gets exactly one nudge.

This is enforced with that "last reminded" date on each participant. Before sending, CultureMonkey checks whether the person was already reminded today. If they were, it moves on. Whichever reminder reaches them first that day wins; the rest quietly skip them.

There's a second, related safeguard for overlapping scheduled and recurring reminders. If a one-time dated reminder and a recurring rule both land on the same day, the recurring one stands down so the two don't compete - a belt-and-braces version of the same one-per-day promise.

How channel choice affects delivery

Channels aren't interchangeable once you look at how each one actually reaches a person. These differences are worth knowing because they explain why a reminder sometimes doesn't land for everyone.

Phone numbers gate SMS and WhatsApp

SMS and WhatsApp reminders can only reach an employee who has a valid phone number on file. When the reminder job runs an SMS survey, anyone without a phone number is simply skipped for that send. WhatsApp behaves the same way: the reminder only goes out for participants who have a phone number.

Critically, there is no automatic fallback to email in this case. If you run an SMS survey and half your people have no phone number stored, those people won't be reminded by SMS and they won't quietly get an email instead - they just aren't reminded on that channel. So before launching an SMS or WhatsApp survey, make sure phone numbers are populated for the audience. See Import and manage employees for how to get that data in.

Slack and Teams depend on the integration

Slack and Teams reminders are delivered as chat messages through the connected integration. If the integration is healthy and the employee is matched to a Slack or Teams identity, the reminder arrives as a direct message. If a particular person can't be matched, that individual message may fail while the rest go through. CultureMonkey logs the outcome of each send (success or failure, per channel) so a failed delivery is recorded rather than silently lost.

Email is the reliable baseline

Email has the fewest prerequisites: no phone number, no integration, no matching step. That's why it's the default and why it tends to reach the widest slice of your audience. The trade-off is visibility - a reminder email competes with a crowded inbox, whereas a Slack or SMS nudge often gets seen faster.

Manual reminders and channel choice

Everything above is about scheduled and recurring reminders, which inherit the survey's channel. Manual reminders are the exception, and the flexibility is deliberate.

From a running survey's manual reminder screen, you're shown a button for each channel - Send Email Reminder, Send SMS Reminder, Send WhatsApp Reminder, Send Slack Reminder, Send Teams Reminder - and you pick one on the spot. This lets you vary the channel from the survey's default. A survey that went out by email can get a manual Slack or SMS push near the deadline to catch the people who tuned out their inbox.

A manual reminder queues immediately and reaches non-responders about two minutes later. It obeys the same non-responder targeting as every other reminder (only people who were sent the survey and haven't answered), and it respects the one-per-day rule unless you explicitly confirm the override described earlier. For the full walkthrough, see Send a manual reminder.

1. 1Open the survey's manual reminder screen - from a running survey, go to its reminders area.
2. 2Pick a channel - choose Email, SMS, Slack, WhatsApp, or Teams for this specific nudge.
3. 3Confirm - if you've already reminded people today, you'll be asked whether to continue.
4. 4Let it send - the nudge queues and reaches non-responders about two minutes later.

Pulse reminders are email-only

One channel behavior surprises people, so it's worth calling out plainly. Pulse survey reminders always go by email, regardless of how the pulse questions themselves are delivered. The automatic reminder that a pulse cycle generates for its non-responders is sent through the email mailer, not through SMS, Slack, WhatsApp, or Teams.

If your workforce is primarily reached by SMS or a chat channel, keep this in mind when relying on pulse reminders to drive participation - the pulse invitation may reach them on their preferred channel, but the automatic reminder will arrive by email. For a lagging pulse cycle you can still send a manual pulse reminder, and the deeper mechanics of pulse timing are covered in How pulse reminders work.

Best practices

• Populate phone numbers before an SMS or WhatsApp survey. Because there's no email fallback, missing numbers mean missed reminders. Check your employee data first.
• Match the launch channel to the audience. Since reminders inherit the survey channel, choosing the right channel at launch quietly fixes your reminders too. Frontline teams: SMS or WhatsApp. Office teams: Slack or Teams. Mixed: email is the safe default.
• Vary the channel for the final push. Use a manual reminder on a different channel for the last-day nudge. If early reminders were emails, a Slack or SMS push often catches the stragglers.
• Confirm the integration is healthy before launching on Slack or Teams. A broken or partially matched integration means some people silently miss their reminders. A quick test send avoids surprises.
• Don't lean on the manual override. The confirm-and-override on manual reminders exists for genuine urgency. Use it once near a deadline, not as a daily habit, or you'll wear people out.
• Trust the one-per-day cap, then add your own restraint. The cap stops double-nudges, but it won't stop reminder fatigue from too many days of reminders. Plan two or three nudges across the window, not a daily drumbeat.

Frequently asked questions

Can I send a reminder on a different channel than the survey went out on?

For scheduled and recurring reminders, no - they follow the survey's channel automatically. For a manual reminder, yes: you pick the channel each time from the manual reminder screen, so you can send a Slack or SMS nudge for an email survey.

Why didn't my SMS reminder reach everyone?

SMS reminders only send to participants who have a valid phone number on file, and there's no automatic email fallback. Anyone without a number is skipped. Import phone numbers for the audience before running an SMS survey. WhatsApp works the same way.

Will someone who already answered still get reminded?

No. Reminders only ever go to people who were sent the survey and haven't submitted yet. The moment someone responds, they're removed from every reminder list for that survey.

Can a person get two reminders in one day?

Not from scheduled or recurring reminders - the one-per-day cap prevents it. The only way it happens is if you send a manual reminder after already reminding people today and confirm the override prompt. That's a deliberate escape hatch for urgent, last-day nudges.

Do QR-code surveys send reminders?

No. QR-only surveys have no individually tracked recipients, so there's nobody specific to nudge. Reminder options are unavailable for them and the reminder job skips them.

Which channel should I use for reminders?

Use the channel your audience actually checks. Email reaches the widest group with the fewest prerequisites and is the safe default. SMS and WhatsApp are strongest for deskless and frontline teams (given phone numbers). Slack and Teams reach office teams fastest in the flow of work.

Where to go next

• Schedule reminders for specific dates: Schedule a one-time reminder
• Keep nudging non-responders on a weekly rule: Set up recurring reminders
• Send an immediate nudge on any channel: Send a manual reminder
• Understand the reminder patterns as a whole: Recurring vs one-time reminders explained