How to use SMS surveys to improve customer experience

The most cost-effective, non-intrusive and engaging way to request feedback.

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More responses, better insights

Thanks to the ease, reach and immediacy of mobile, your surveys can reach customers at the moment they’re most likely to offer constructive feedback. Expect to more than double response rates of phone surveys – enabling better business decisions, and product/service improvements.

Get closer to customers

Customers can air opinions and express themselves in a friction-free manner, moments after using a product or service. You in turn get the chance to resolve issues – even after a bad customer experience. Expect fewer customers venting on social media as a result!

Fast and simple

Launch your surveys in minutes – with a mobile messaging API that hooks up your systems, or a drag-and-drop builder. With the right back-end integrations, surveys can be triggered by an update to a field in a CRM, a booking system, a database entry, or following a period of inactivity.


What insights do you need?

SMS surveys can help you collect customer and employee feedback, market research, event attendee requirements, and even customer database cleansing – ensuring your customer details and preferences stay up to date.

Get started, fast

It couldn’t be easier to get started with SMS surveys. Once you have a list of opt-in customers, choose your survey type, build an automated workflow (or choose from our templates) and you’re ready to go.

Trigger a survey

Connect your mobile messaging platform to your back-end systems and you can trigger surveys based on events. These can include a hotel checkout, product purchase, completed training session, visit from an engineer or a customer call.

Act on results

Make customers feel listened to and cared for by automating responses. A low score on a customer satisfaction survey can trigger an automated action – a customer service call for example, or perhaps a generous discount offer. This will help you rectify the issue and reveal root causes.


More effective than email

Hotel chain Club Mahindra saw a 140% improvement in response rates when it swapped email for SMS. The response rate for SMS surveys can be 7.5X higher than that of email surveys, according to our partner VoiceSage.

More effective than IVR

A leading media company saw a 41% improvement in response rates when it switched from Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to SMS surveys.

Actionable insights

Open-ended questions can expose a gold mine of actionable insights. One of our media clients found that 40% of responses led to actions that improved business processes.

More honest responses

Research from the University of Michigan found people are more precise and candid in SMS surveys, compared with phone interviews.


Act fast

Capture feedback the moment customers have finished using your products or services as this is when they’re most likely to provide feedback. Think about the context of a situation as well. If a survey is triggered by an event – for example, a hotel check out – you might want to give it ten minutes to catch them in the taxi on the way to the airport.

Choose the right time

There’s no perfect time to schedule a survey that isn’t triggered by an event. The golden rule is to imagine at what day and time your audience are most likely to answer it. Research suggests 98% of messages are opened – the vast majority within a minute or two. So you can be sure the message will get through.

Typical time slots

Many businesses send surveys at lunchtime as that’s when people are likely to have free time. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays tend to be favoured too. Why? On Monday people can be busy planning their week, and on Fridays they might be wrapping up for the weekend.

Be imaginative

Be prepared to think out of the box though. You might decide it’s more appropriate to deliver a survey at a non-typical time. But check the laws of the country you’re operating in. There might be strict rules in place on the times you can reach out in.

 

How we can help

A library of ready-to-launch campaigns

Data visualizations and in-depth reporting

Flexible APIs

 

OpenMarket’s intelligent messaging services help us listen to our customers better at every touch point. They help us to get to the exact root of why our members feel positively or negatively about their time with us. We’ve seen a significant positive impact on our NPS scores and look forward to continuing our great relationship with OpenMarket.

Sujit Paul, National Head, Member Relations & Business Excellence Club Mahindra

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