Ask why an organisation hasn't fixed its feedback problem and the answer is rarely a competitor. It's the status quo: a Google Form after the all-hands, a Slack emoji poll, or nothing at all until the exit interviews start explaining what happened.
The do-nothing option wins because it feels costless. It isn't, the cost comes later as turnover.
"Is this actually anonymous?"
Run this test. Post a Google Form asking for honest feedback and watch the first question that comes back. It's always the same: is this anonymous?
The honest answer is "sort of, if we set it up right, and you'll have to trust us on that". Forms tied to workspace accounts can collect email addresses with one setting. Slack polls are worse: reactions and responses sit in the channel with names attached, or a click away in the admin view. Your team includes people who administer these tools. They know exactly what's visible.
So people respond the way you'd expect: generously, vaguely, safely. The form fills with 7-out-of-10s and "no concerns", the poll collects thumbs-ups, and the manager who sensed something was wrong concludes it must be fine. That's the most expensive outcome in this whole category: false reassurance.
Relay removes the question. Responses are anonymised before they reach any dashboard, aggregated results only appear above a minimum threshold, and we cannot identify individual respondents even if we're asked to. Nobody has to trust a setting. The architecture does the promising.
One-offs can't see movement
Even a well-run DIY form is a snapshot, and snapshots miss the only thing that matters: direction. A team scoring 7 that was a 9 last month is in trouble. A team at 6 climbing from 4 is healing. The number is the same story told twice; the movement is the truth.
Relay's weekly 30-second check-in, delivered over SMS, WhatsApp, email, Slack or Teams with no login, builds that moving picture automatically. Fifty-two points a year. When the restructure lands or the big client turns hostile, you see the dip that week, not at the next ad-hoc form someone remembers to send.
Someone has to read it
The Google Form's final failure is the follow-through. Free-text responses pile up in a spreadsheet, reading them is nobody's job, and the silence that follows teaches the team a lesson: nothing happens when we speak. Asking again after that gets harder every time. Collecting feedback and not responding is worse than never asking.
Relay makes the response step almost unavoidable. Every Monday, a five-minute summary: themes, sentiment shifts, response rates, and the issues still open from previous weeks. It's a prompt, not a report, and it keeps asking one question of leadership: what are you going to do about this?
The real cost comparison
Google Forms costs nothing and delivers guarded snapshots nobody actions. Relay starts at a flat monthly cost, takes five minutes to set up, and delivers a weekly stream of honest signal with a built-in habit of responding to it. One good decision it helps you make earlier, one resignation it helps you prevent, pays for years of it.
Free was never free. It was just deferred.
Try Relay for free for 30 days, no credit card required. Send your first check-in this week and compare what comes back to your last Google Form. That comparison ends the debate.