Collecting Post Therapy Feedback: Advice for Therapists

Should you collect client feedback after therapy has ended, for example through a short client satisfaction survey or therapy feedback form? Some therapists see it as a valuable way to review outcomes and improve their practice. Others question how reliable the responses are or whether clients will bother to reply at all.

Should You Collect Feedback From Therapy Clients?

Probably every good therapist asks for feedback from clients whilst they are undertaking therapy, either verbal or more formal. In fact, there is evidence to show that FIT (Feedback Informed Treatment) boosts the effectiveness of therapy, improves clients’ general sense of wellbeing and reduces dropout rates and no-shows. (Psych Central, 2016)

That’s probably because client feedback helps you to focus on what’s important. You can adapt your therapy to their changing circumstances, and build on the approaches the client feels are most successful.

But not everyone contacts the client after the therapy has ended and once they have the benefit of hindsight.

Benefits of Using a Client Satisfaction Survey

• You can check whether the work you did together is still helping when the client doesn’t have the reassurance or reinforcement of attending regular sessions.
• You can offer further help if it’s needed, although you need to be careful how you phrase this. People may give inaccurate answers if, for example, they believe that admitting they have gone back to smoking or regained weight might lead to a ‘hard sell’ for having more sessions.
• Emotional and subjective feedback from clients helps in your reflective practice.
• You can ask if the feedback can be used as a testimonial (assuming you use them).
• The longer-term feedback (where positive) improves your confidence, especially when you are newly qualified. It’s lovely to hear that your clients are doing well.
• Even not so positive feedback is useful. It helps you to learn from your clients’ experiences and improve your service. (See my article on customer service for more on that topic). It may also signpost where further training is needed.

Drawbacks of Using a Client Satisfaction Survey

• As said, people may not give you accurate feedback if they worry about your response or about disappointing you.
• People’s mood or circumstances on the day they complete the survey might affect their answers.
• Not all clients will bother responding (more on this later). Some feel they are bombarded with too many surveys, others forget or simply can’t be bothered.
• Those with strong feelings about how things went (whether positive or negative) are the most motivated to respond. This means the feedback is not necessarily representative of your overall results.
• Surveys are not ideal for collecting objective data from small numbers of people, because the data cannot be generalised. For example, saying that 100% of your clients have stopped smoking, if you’ve only helped one client quit, is meaningless. This is one reason that information collected via surveys cannot be used to calculate your personal quit smoking success rates. (Advice Online, 2025). This ruling technically only applies to smoking cessation clients but, ethically, the same principle applies to other issues too.
• You need time to analyse and use the feedback, or there is no point in collecting it.

How to Improve Feedback Response Rates

Elmo, a US company that designs and administers surveys, offered the following comments regarding the link between response rates and survey types:

Response rates vary widely for different types of surveys. Customer satisfaction surveys and market research surveys often have response rates in the 10% – 30% range. (Elmo, 2020)

That’s not very high, so you need to improve your response rate as much as possible, to justify the time you spend on collecting and analysing the data. It can help to mention to clients at their final session that you’ll be sending it, when and how. Explain why it’s important for them to return it and thank them in advance for doing so.

Best Practices For Therapy Feedback Forms

• Short surveys get more responses than longer ones. Give people an idea of how long it will take them to complete the survey before they begin.
• Send a reminder to those who don’t respond. The best time is around ten days after the original request.
• Offering an incentive (a free tip sheet or audio, perhaps) can improve response rates by 10 to 15%. One study showed that including a gift voucher with the request for feedback was twice as effective as promising to send people a gift after they have completed it.
• Personalising the message that requests feedback can improve rates by around 7%.

Designing Your Client Feedback Form

Once you decide to introduce a feedback form, these thoughts will get you started.

• Having the client’s permission to use their data for therapy doesn’t give you the right to use it for surveys. The GDPR offers options that would cover it, such as legitimate interests or consent. You need to meet a couple of specific conditions for the legitimate interest option to apply. Consent is therefore probably the best option. Include a mention of your intent to send a follow up to clients in your privacy policy.
• The GDPR says ‘there must be specific purposes for processing the data’ and that you ‘must collect and process only personal data that is necessary to fulfil that purpose’. ‌(European Commission, 2019). Consider your questions carefully. What use will you make of the answers? If the answer is ‘none’ then don’t ask.
• Use mostly rating questions so responses are consistent and can be compared. You can allow a freestyle box at the end so clients can include comments that don’t fit elsewhere. With appropriate permission, you may be able to use some of these comments as testimonials as well as feedback.
• Try to be innovative in your approach and your ratings. One expert says ratings like “Slightly dissatisfied” is not an emotional state many people relate to. “I had some real problems” or “I enjoyed the sessions” will elicit a much better response. ‌(Customer Thermometer, n.d.). I love this idea. Being creative in naming your rating scales might also catch people’s attention and encourage them to complete your form.
• Automate the system if you can, to minimise the time you spend sending things out.
• Use your clean language skills when wording questions. My husband was recently asked to complete a survey in which one of the questions read ‘Do you agree that X should happen? If you choose ‘no’ or ‘don’t know’, please give your reasons.’ It was pretty clear that the answer they wanted was ‘yes’.

How to Collect Client Feedback

You could always ask each client how they would like to receive the survey and stick with their preferences. But if you want to restrict yourself to one method for everyone consider the following:

• Email has low response rates compared to other methods. Your email can get lost among many others, or could be missed by a busy client. On the other hand, it’s simple and familiar for clients, and both the request and reminder can easily be automated.
• Many people answer texts more quickly and more often than emails. Using a free service like Survey Monkey allows surveys to be sent by text. Bear in mind that, whilst most people spend a lot of time on their phones, some may prefer an alternative.
• Phoning puts clients on the spot and you could have phoned at an inconvenient time. Making an appointment is one option to avoid this. Phoning is the most personal method, and you can listen for paralanguage when chatting to the client. However, people might be less inclined to offer honest criticisms when speaking to you directly, skewing your results.

Is Collecting Therapy Feedback Worthwhile?

In the end, collecting post-therapy feedback is a personal decision. Some therapists value the additional insight it gives them into how their work holds up over time. Others feel the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. What matters most is that you continue to reflect on your work and look for ways to improve the service you offer your clients.

References:

Advice Online, A.S.A. | C. of A. (2025). Health: Hypnotherapy. [online] www.asa.org.uk. Available at: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/health-hypnotherapy.html. [Accessed 8 March 2026].
‌Customer Thermometer. (n.d.). Customer Satisfaction Survey App | Email Survey Tools. [online] Available at: https://www.customerthermometer.com/ [Accessed 12 March 2026].
Customer Thermometer. (2017). Improve Survey Response Rate – Customer Feedback Questionnaire. [online] Available at: https://www.customerthermometer.com/customer-surveys/14-ways-improve-survey-response-rate/ [Accessed 8 March 2026].
Customer Thermometer. (2019). Average Survey Response Rate – What You Need to Know. [online] Available at: https://www.customerthermometer.com/customer-surveys/average-survey-response-rate/. [Accessed 8 March 2026].
DeFranzo, S.E. (2012). Advantages and Disadvantages of Customer Satisfaction Surveys. [online] Snap Surveys Blog. Available at: https://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/advantages-disadvantages-customer-satisfaction-surveys/. [Accessed 8 March 2026].
Elmo. (2020). Tips On How To Increase Your Survey Response Rates. [online] ELMO Software. Available at: https://elmosoftware.com.au/resources/blog/tips-on-how-to-increase-your-survey-response-rates [Accessed 13 Mar. 2026].
‌European Commission. (2019). What data can we process and under which conditions? [online] Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/principles-gdpr/what-data-can-we-process-and-under-which-conditions_en. [Accessed 8 March 2026]
Psych Central. (2016). Feedback-Informed Treatment: Empowering Clients to Use Their Voices. [online] Available at: https://psychcentral.com/lib/feedback-informed-treatment-empowering-clients-to-use-their-voices#1 [Accessed 8 March 2026].
Ramshaw, A. (2017). The Pros and Cons of Surveys That Are Critical to Success. [online] Genroe. Available at: https://www.genroe.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-surveys/11471. [Accessed 8 March 2026].

Disclaimer
The information and ideas shared on this blog are based on the author’s professional experience, research, and training. They are intended for educational purposes and to support reflection and professional development. Therapists should always apply their own professional judgment and consider the needs of individual clients when using any techniques or suggestions discussed here.
While every effort is made to ensure the information is accurate and helpful, no responsibility can be accepted for any loss, damage, or difficulties arising from the use or misuse of material contained in these articles.