PlaybookPrompts

Quantify and rank themes from open-ended survey responses

Data & Analysis survey-analysisqualitativethematic-analysisreporting

Open-ended survey responses are rich but hard to summarize for leadership, who want numbers. This prompt structures the synthesis so you can report 'X% of respondents mentioned Y' rather than offering vague impressions.

Prompt
I have a set of open-ended survey responses and need to convert them into a quantified theme summary I can present to stakeholders. Here is the context:

- Survey question asked: {{SURVEY_QUESTION}}
- Number of responses: {{RESPONSE_COUNT}}
- Raw responses (paste them here, one per line): {{RAW_RESPONSES}}
- Audience for the output: {{OUTPUT_AUDIENCE}} (e.g., product leadership, customer success team)

Please do the following:

1. Read through all responses and identify 5–8 distinct themes. Name each theme with a 3–5 word label.
2. For each theme, count how many responses mention it (a single response can belong to multiple themes) and calculate the percentage of total responses.
3. Rank themes by frequency. For each theme, pull 2 representative verbatim quotes that illustrate it well.
4. Note the sentiment breakdown for the top 3 themes: what share of mentions within that theme are positive, neutral, or negative?
5. Write a 3-sentence executive summary that leads with the most frequent theme and includes at least one specific statistic.
6. Caveats to include: flag if the response count is below 30 (low statistical confidence), and note that theme assignment involves judgment and a second reviewer may categorize differently.
Variables to fill in
  • {{SURVEY_QUESTION}}
  • {{RESPONSE_COUNT}}
  • {{RAW_RESPONSES}}
  • {{OUTPUT_AUDIENCE}}

How to use this prompt

  1. Copy the prompt above (Copy button on the top-right).
  2. Replace each {{VAR}} with your own value. Variables: {{SURVEY_QUESTION}}{{RESPONSE_COUNT}}{{RAW_RESPONSES}}{{OUTPUT_AUDIENCE}}.
  3. Paste it into one of the recommended tools below.
  4. Iterate: tighten constraints in the prompt if the output is generic.

Why this prompt is structured this way

The prompt is split into explicit steps because LLMs do better when the path is named, not implied. Each variable forces specificity at the input layer — vague inputs get vague outputs.

Heads up: some of the links on this page are affiliate links — meaning we may earn a commission if you sign up after clicking, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend tools we'd put on our own stack. You can see our full affiliate disclosure here.

Pair this prompt with a tool

The PlaybookPrompts weekly

One short email per week. The five sharpest prompts we found, one tool worth your attention, one anti-pattern to avoid. Unsubscribe in one click.

Newsletter signup is not configured. Set PUBLIC_NEWSLETTER_USERNAME in the build env.