How replying to survey comments changed everything
Over the Christmas and New Year break here in Australia, I found myself at a lot of BBQs with friends and family. Like most holidays, the conversations bounced between work, kids, holidays, sport and everything in between.
What nobody asked me, which is a massive shame for this blog post 😉 was "if had Teamgage had released any game-changing new features recently?"
Because, honestly I had such a great answer ready to go!
Reply to survey comments
After months of feedback from customers last year and a huge amount of work from our Product team, we finally released something organisations are now saying changes everything.
That feature is giving leaders the ability to reply directly to survey comments in a safe, secure and anonymous way.
On paper it might sound like a small addition. In reality, it's a super powerful new way for organisations to engage with employee feedback.
Why employee feedback has never been more important
When you look at what people are being asked to deal with at work right now, it’s no surprise that surveys are full of ideas, concerns and strong opinions.
From high turnover to major restructures, organisations are dealing with constant change. Budgets have tightened, customer expectations have shifted, and leaders are now navigating digital transformation, AI tools, changing views on flexible work and new psychosocial safety legislation across Australia.
That’s a huge amount of change for employees to process and comment on, and it places even more pressure on leaders to genuinely engage with their people rather than just collect feedback. Gartner’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report reinforces this, showing both the cost of getting it wrong and the opportunity that comes from building strong engagement cultures, which are directly linked to higher productivity and profitability. This is something from my conversations with customers that I know is a major focus this year.
But in my opinion, the problem for many organisations has never been about getting people to share their views. The real challenge has been what happens after the survey closes.
Moving beyond collecting feedback to actually engaging with it
For years, employees have filled out surveys, offered honest thoughts and raised important concerns, only to hear little back. Leaders had the best intentions, but feedback often ended up in reports, dashboards and spreadsheets rather than turning into those real conversations that can make a difference.
Over time, that silence creates frustration and disengagement AKA survey fatigue. People start to wonder whether their input actually makes a difference.
So it's here where replying directly to survey comments, completely changes that dynamic!
Leaders can now follow up on specific pieces of feedback while keeping employees safe and anonymous. Instead of seeing a comment and guessing what it really means, they can ask clarifying questions, thank people for raising issues, explore ideas further and explain what actions are being taken.
So far in 2026, I’ve already seen thousands of leaders around the world reviewing their Teamgage results and, where appropriate, starting conversations with their teams directly off the back of that feedback. Those two-way discussions are showing people that their voice genuinely matters.
Built because customers asked for it
This feature exists because our customers kept raising the same frustration.
They loved the open and authentic honesty that anonymous feedback created, but they wanted a way to follow up without breaking trust or making employees feel exposed. Senior leaders and HR teams told us they needed to understand concerns more deeply, act quickly on risks and keep people feeling safe at the same time.
Our Product team knew this wasn’t something that could be rushed or handled loosely. It had to be secure, easy to use and genuinely anonymous for employees. That took time and careful design, but it was something they were determined to get right. The result has quickly become one of the most impactful features in Teamgage, and one that many customers now see as a major advantage over traditional survey tools.
How AI supports better, calmer conversations
We’ve also made AI available alongside these conversations to support employees and leaders as they respond. This is all about ensuring everyone gets the most out of every conversation.
For example, not everyone feels confident replying to sensitive feedback, especially when emotions are involved or when the topic relates to wellbeing, workload or team conflict. The AI provides guidance on how to approach responses with empathy, best practice and a constructive tone, helping leaders move discussions forward in a positive way.
As one of our Customer Success Managers recently shared:
“I know leaders sometimes worry about saying the wrong thing, but the AI guidance is giving them confidence and making the conversations more productive.”
Creating shared responsibility for engagement
Now, if you’re thinking this sounds like a lot of extra work for HR or senior leaders, having conversations about survey feedback across the organisation, don’t worry!
One of the most positive shifts I’ve seen over the past year is how more HR leaders are sharing responsibility for employee engagement, with team managers taking ownership of their own team’s ongoing survey results.
This approach works just as well with replying to survey comments. Team managers can be given the ability to respond directly to survey feedback from their teams, supported by Teamgage AI, while senior leaders and HR have a clear view across the organisation and can step in to support or join conversations when needed.
We’re already seeing this take pressure off HR teams, speed up action, and keep feedback closer to where real change happens day to day.
From listening to real engagement
Gartner’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report highlighted that global employee engagement has fallen to just 21%. This costs the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars in lost productivity and performance.
That drop isn’t because organisations aren’t running surveys. It’s because too many people don’t feel truly heard or involved in what happens next.
So this is why Teamgage’s product roadmap has focused heavily on fixing that problem, with new ways for employees to have a say, science-backed engagement surveys, clearer sharing of results, better action tracking and AI-driven insights.
Replying to survey comments sits right at the centre of this shift.
It turns feedback into real dialogue, real action and real trust.
As Warren Fenn, Chief Operating Officer at Fragile to Agile, shared:
“If every bit of feedback is treated as a gift and handled accordingly, it will increase the chances you get value from a solution like Teamgage.”
If you’d like to see how this feature can lift engagement in your organisation and create real change, we’d love to show you.
